THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


IN  MEMORY  OF 
MRS.  VIRGINIA  B.  SPORER 


THE   HAPSBURG   MONARCHY 


THE    HAPSBURG 
MONARCHY 


BY 

HENRY  WICKHAM   STEED 


NEW   YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
19*3 


DEDICATION 

A  Roman  road,  tall  elms,  an  ancient  fane, 
Woodland  and  mead  studded  with  Tudor  towers, 
God's  acre,  gladdened  by  unbidden  flowers 
That  bloom  and  yearly  die  to  live  again ; 
Peace,  luminous  as  sunset  after  rain, — 
An  old-world  peace,  careless  of  days  and  hours, 
Sure  of  the  blue  beyond  the  sky  that  lowers, 
Certain  that  neither  Love  nor  Faith  is  vain. 

Oh  !  ye  that  rest  beneath  yon  hallowed  sod 
Yet  urge  with  memory's  strength  our  feet  to  move 
In  childlike  steps  along  the  path  ye  trod : 
Know  that  we  hope  and  strive  e'en  as  ye  strove, 
Know  that  we  seek  as  ye  our  way  to  God, 
Know  that  we  live  as  ye  by  faith  and  love. 


2041614 


PREFACE 

THE  purpose  of  this  book  is  to  record,  before  they  fade  or 
become  over-simplified  by  memory,  the  impressions  received 
and  the  conclusions  reached  during  ten  years'  work  in  Austria- 
Hungary.  Many  foreign  writers  have  already  dealt  with 
Austrian,  Hungarian,  and  Austro-Hungarian  questions.  Some 
have  written  hastily,  some  have  studied  profoundly  and  some 
have  reproduced  material  obtained  from  official  sources  ;  but, 
unless  I  am  mistaken,  none  have  enjoyed  the  advantage — 
or  laboured  under  the  disadvantage — of  having  lived  for  a 
decade  the  daily  life  of  the  country  and  of  having  been 
obliged  to  preserve  in  regard  to  it  a  critical  if  not  a  judicial 
attitude.  Such  writers  have,  as  a  rule  and  necessarily,  dealt 
chiefly  with  externals,  gathering  and  working  on  documents 
or  reproducing  impressions  received  and  information  collected 
during  visits  and  journeys.  Much  of  their  work  has  been 
based  on  precise  knowledge  of  recorded  facts,  statistics,  race 
idiosyncrasies  and  historical  developments,  and  is,  therefore, 
of  permanent  value  even  though  it  sometimes  lack  discern- 
ment of  the  peculiar  realities  that  lie  behind  the  complicated 
phenomena  of  public  and  social  life  in  the  Hapsburg 
dominions.  My  object  is  not  to  tread  again  the  ground  they 
have  trodden,  but  rather  to  offer  the  fruits  of  individual 
experience  and  reflection  as  a  modest  contribution  to  the 
difficult  task  of  rendering  Austro-Hungarian  tendencies  and 

vii 


viii  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

problems  less  incomprehensible  to  the  outside  world.  Though 
in  dealing  with  those  problems  some  degree  of  juridical 
differentiation  and  terminological  distinction  is  inevitable,  I 
have  tried  to  dwell  less  upon  points  of  difference  than  upon 
the  features  and  interests  that  are  common  to  the  peoples 
ruled  by  the  House  of  Hapsburg.  The  Hapsburg  Monarchy 
requires  synthetic  treatment.  In  the  case  of  a  country  so 
diversified,  analysis  is  fruitful  of  confusion.  The  ablest  dis- 
quisition upon  the  constitutional  history  and  State  rights  of 
Hungary  or  Bohemia,  the  most  exact  statistical  treatise  upon 
races  and  languages,  is  apt  to  leave  the  foreign  reader 
bewildered  and  disheartened.  Even  at  the  risk  of  scandalizing 
believers  in  the  Dual  System  as  the  last  word  of  Austro- 
Hungarian  political  development,  it  is  needful  to  insist  upon 
the  essential  unity  of  the  Hapsburg  Lands,  although  that 
unity  is,  and  may  increasingly  become,  a  unity  in  diversity. 
For  this  unity  no  better  name  can  be  found  than  "The 
Hapsburg  Monarchy."  The  constitutionally  correct  names 
"  Austria- Hungary  "  and  "  Austro- Hungarian  Monarchy  "  are 
poor  substitutes  for  the  old  comprehensive  designations 
"  Austria  "  and  "  The  Austrian  Monarchy,"  which  expressed 
more  adequately  than  the  present  compound  terms  the 
political  individuality  of  the  Hapsburg  peoples.  This  in- 
dividuality is  only  hidden,  not  dead  ;  and  despite  recent 
blunders  and  shortcomings,  there  may  yet  be  good  ground 
for  the  belief  that,  whenever  the  head  of  the  dynasty  shall 
call  for  a  common  effort,  or  in  the  hour  of  common  need, 
the  spirit  of  Grillparzer's  famous  lines  will  again  be  vindi- 
cated as  it  was  during  the  annexation  crisis  of  1908-9  : 

Die  Gott  als  Slav1  und  Magyaren  schufj 

Sie  streiten  um  Worte  nicht  hamisch, 

Sie  folgen,  ob  deutsch  auch  der  Feldherrnruf : 

Denn  "  Vorwarts  ! "  ist  ungrisch  und  bohmisch. 


PREFACE  ix 

Gemeinsame  Hilf  in  gemeinsamer  Not 
Hat  Reiche  und  Staaten  gegriindet ; 
Der  Mensch  1st  ein  Einsamer  nur  im  Tod, 
Doch  Leben  und  Streben  verbiindet. 

Errors,  weakness,  or  prejudice  on  the  part  of  the  Monarch, 
of  statesmen,  or  of  races  may,  it  is  true,  bring  the  Monarchy 
again  to  the  verge  of  ruin  ;  disaster  may  seem  to  portend 
the  fulfilment  of  prophecies  of  disintegration  ;  but  I  have 
been  unable  to  perceive  during  ten  years  of  constant  obser- 
vation and  experience — years,  moreover,  filled  with  struggle 
and  crisis — any  sufficient  reason  why,  with  moderate  fore- 
sight on  the  part  of  the  Dynasty,  the  Hapsburg  Monarchy 
should  not  retain  its  rightful  place  in  the  European  com- 
munity. Its  internal  crises  are  often  crises  of  growth  rather 
than  of  decay.  The  intense  belief  in  a  better  future  that 
animates  the  best  "  Hapsburgians "  is  in  itself  an  earnest 
that  their  faith  is  not,  or  need  not  be,  vain.  Whatever 
censure,  whatever  criticisms  may  be  found  in  the  following 
pages  are  to  be  taken  as  subject  to  this  main  principle,  and 
as  evidence  of  the  writer's  desire,  when  pointing  out  blemishes, 
to  indicate  the  expediency  and  the  possibility  of  remedy. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

INTRODUCTION  .  xiii 


CHAPTER    I 
THE  MONARCH  AND  THE  MONARCHY  .  i 

CHAPTER    II 
THE  STATE      .......       59 

CHAPTER    III 
THE  PEOPLE    .         .  .  .  .  .  .  .120 

CHAPTER    IV 
FOREIGN  POLICY         ......     207 

INDEX  .  •     297 


XI 


INTRODUCTION 

THE  Hapsburg  Monarchy  has  ever  been  a  butt  for  epigram. 
Napoleon  and  Talleyrand,  Metternich  and  Bismarck,  Glad- 
stone and  countless  other  statesmen,  writers  and  diplomatists 
have  whetted  their  wit  or  vented  their  indignation  upon  the 
semi-anonymous  polity  which,  surviving  the  dissolution  of 
the  "  Holy  Roman  "  Empire,  continues  to  own  the  sway  of 
the  House  of  Austria.  From  the  Napoleonic  gibe  at  the 
eternal  tardiness  of  Austria  down  to  Metternich's  sarcastic 
confession  that  "Asia  begins  on  the  Landstrasse" — the 
eastern  suburb  of  Vienna — and  to  Gladstone's  exclamation 
that  nowhere  in  the  world  has  Austria  ever  done  good,  these 
apophthegms,  one  and  all,  had  reference  to  the  defective 
quality  of  the  Austrian  "soul."  Lagarde,  the  famous 
German  writer,  even  denied  the  existence  of  an  Austrian 
"  soul."  "  Prussia,"  he  declared,  "  has  not  enough  body  for 
her  soul ;  Austria  no  soul  for  her  very  ample  body." l 
Lagarde  wrote  in  1853  before  Prussia  found  scope  for  her 
energies  in  the  unification  of  Germany  and  before  Austria 
was  born  again  in  the  form  of  Austria- Hungary  ;  but  in  some 
respects  his  stricture  holds  good.  "  Austria  "  has  never  yet 
quite  "  found  herself."  The  Austrian  question  is  whether  she 
can  "find  herself," — a  question  on  which  it  would  be  rash 
to  dogmatize,  above  all  negatively.  Though  the  House  of 
Hapsburg  is  one  of  the  oldest  of  dynasties,  its  peoples  are 
one  of  the  youngest  of  nations  and  often  seem  unconscious 
of  their  nationhood.  The  very  words  "  nation  "  and  "  nation- 
ality" have  for  them  a  special  and  restricted  meaning. 

1  Deutsche  Schriften^  p.  35. 
xiii 


xiv  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

Austrian  Germans  speak  of  their  "  nation "  and  mean 
primarily  the  Germans  of  Bohemia,  the  Tyrol,  Upper  and 
Lower  Austria,  Moravia,  Styria  and  Carinthia,  and  secondarily 
their  brethren  draussen  im  Reicht  that  is,  in  the  German 
Empire.  Czechs,  Croatians,  Serbs,  Slovenes,  Poles,  and 
Ruthenes  or  Little  Russians,  nay,  even  the  Jews  of  the 
Zionist  persuasion,  likewise  refer  to  their  several  "  nations  " 
in  an  ethnical  sense.  The  idea  of  an  "  Austrian "  nation- 
hood, with  its  uniting  virtue,  is  lacking,  nor  is  the  want 
supplied  by  what  is  called  the  "State  idea."  True,  Austrians 
and  Hungarians  alike  employ  the  term  "  Fatherland,"  but 
they  usually  limit  its  application  to  their  own  half  of  the 
Monarchy ;  Gesamtpatrtotismus,  or  patriotism  embracing  the 
whole  Monarchy,  is  the  privilege  of  a  few.  Such  "  soul "  as 
"  Austria  "  possesses  is  mainly  dynastic  ;  and  the  principal 
bond  between  the  Hapsburg  peoples  is  devotion  to  the 
person  of  the  Monarch,  who,  ruling  by  right  Divine  in  various 
constitutional  guises,  is  the  chief  factor  in  each  State  separ- 
ately and  in  both  States  jointly.  The  Dual  Monarchy 
depends  upon  the  Crown  more  fully  and  more  truly  than 
any  other  European  realm.  The  dynasty  is  not  only  the 
pivot  and  centre  but  the  living  force  of  the  body-politic. 
The  Army,  the  Navy,  the  Bureaucracy  and,  in  a  sense,  the 
Church  are  dynastic  projections.  "  Austria  "  can  only  "  find 
herself"  when  her  aspirations  run  parallel  to  those  of  the 
dynasty,  or  when  dynastic  purpose  coincides  with  popular 
necessity.  Here,  more  than  elsewhere,  union  is,  or  might  be, 
strength  ;  here,  more  than  elsewhere,  division  signifies  weak- 
ness and  waste.  "  Viribus  Unitis,"  the  Emperor  Francis 
Joseph's  motto,  defines  indeed  the  "  Austrian  "  ideal — but 
reality  would  often  be  more  aptly  indicated  were  the  rims  of 
the  coins  that  bear  the  motto  to  be  inscribed  with  the  pre- 
cept "  Divide  et  impera "  and  the  ruler's  effigy  to  be  sur- 
rounded by  the  unchanging  though  unconfessed  Hapsburg 
maxim,  "  Voluntas  Imperatoris  Suprema  Lex  esto  !  " 

Yet,    despite     a    statecraft     frequently    "soulless,"    the 
Emperor   Francis  Joseph  has  cultivated,  and   succeeded  in 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

maintaining  throughout  the  greater  part  of  his  reign,  such  a 
relationship  between  the  dynasty  and  most  of  its  peoples 
that  the  Crown  has  come  to  be  regarded  as  a  personal  posses- 
sion of  its  subjects  to  an  extent  hardly  to  be  paralleled  in 
Germany,  in  Italy,  or  perhaps  even  in  England.  This  personal 
relationship  is  one  of  the  chief  realities  that  lie  behind  Austro- 
Hungarian  Constitutional  appearances,  a  reality  not  without 
drawbacks  corresponding  to  its  vital  significance.  Personal 
in  its  embodiment,  it  involves  the  extension  of  the  personal 
principle  to  all  departments  of  public  life,  and  produces, 
through  its  action  upon  a  popular  character  predisposed  by 
temperament  and  tradition  to  yield  to  its  influence,  a  vague- 
ness and  instability  baffling  to  non-Austrians.  "What  is 
incomprehensible  to  every  non-Austrian,  nay,  the  eternally 
unintelligible  about  Austria,  is  the  Asiatic  in  Austria,"  wrote 
in  1871  Ferdinand  Kurnberger,1  the  ablest  Austrian  essayist 
of  the  second  half  of  the  nineteenth  century.  But,  he  added, 
"  Austria  is  not  really  unintelligible ;  it  must  be  compre- 
hended as  a  kind  of  Asia.  '  Europe '  and  '  Asia  '  are  very 
precise  ideas.  Europe  means  Law  ;  Asia  means  arbitrary 
rule.  Europe  means  respect  for  facts ;  Asia  means  the 
purely  personal.  Europe  is  the  man  ;  Asia  is  at  once  the 
old  man  and  the  child.  With  this  key  you  may  solve  all 
Austrian  riddles." 

And  again  : 

"  Did  I  say  that  Asia  is  both  a  child  and  an  old  man  ? 
Austria  also.  The  way  our  people,  lively,  light -living, 
changeable,  dance  up  to  all  things  with  verve  and  grace  is 
like  a  rosy  children's  ball.  But  note  well  that  in  all  this 
South  German  liveliness  and  Slav  changeability,  in  this 
whole  rapid  whirl  of  persons,  the  thing  itself  remains  Asiatic- 
ally  stiff,  inert,  conservative,  sphinx-dead  and  spectrally 
hoary,  not  having  budged  an  inch  since  Biblical  times.  For 
this  reason  the  most  daring  innovations  come  easier  to  us 
than  to  other  States — because  they  are  only  new  names.  .  .  . 
We  might  proclaim  Atheism  as  the  State  religion  and  the 

1  Siegelringe,  1st  edition,  pp.  220-225. 


xvi  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

Cardinal -Archbishop    would    celebrate    an    aesthetic    High 
Mass  in  the  Cathedral." 

Thirty-five  years  after  the  publication  of  this  essay 
Austria  astonished  Europe  by  introducing  universal  suffrage 
overnight.  Hitherto  this  "  daring  innovation  "  has  indeed 
seemed,  or  been  caused  to  seem,  little  more  than  a  "  new 
name " ;  and  it  is  a  typically  Austrian  paradox  that  an 
extension  of  popular  rights  should  have  been  dictated  to 
Parliament  by  the  Crown  from  above  and  forced  on  from 
below  by  socialist  organizations  working  in  harmony  with 
the  Crown.  In  point  of  fact  the  introduction  of  universal 
suffrage  was  the  fulfilment  of  a  dynastic  plan  long  formed 
and  tenaciously  pursued.  To  regard  it  simply  as  a  "popular 
victory"  would  be  to  overlook  the  circumstance  that,  in  the 
Hapsburg  Monarchy,  most  things  have  another  than  their 
surface  meaning,  fulfil  another  than  their  ostensible  function. 
While  such  a  country  is  not  susceptible  of  definition  by  epi- 
gram, synthetic  treatment  is  required  to  make  it  approxi- 
mately intelligible.  The  portrait  of  "  Austria  "  can  best  be 
drawn  in  bold  outline  by  hands  consciously  careless  of 
distracting  detail. 

However  the  portrait  be  drawn,  the  question  of  method 
is  important.  Neither  the  purely  historical  nor  the  con- 
temporary-photographic method  is  entirely  satisfactory,  nor 
can  the  ethnographical  method  quite  serve  the  purpose. 
Historical  continuity  assuredly  exists,  despite  abrupt  changes 
and  dislocations ;  statistical  returns  and  reports  on  local 
conditions  are  valuable  ;  ethnography  is  likewise  of  service, 
provided  it  be  borne  in  mind  that  what  is  essential  in 
Austria  is  not  so  much  the  individual  characteristics  of  the 
various  race  groups  as  the  mixing,  the  blending  of  those 
characteristics  and  groups  in  and  through  the  common  State 
and  in  the  service  of  the  common  dynasty.  Could  the 
Monarchy  be  divided  into  race  compartments,  each  care- 
fully segregated  and  only  linked  together,  like  the  cells  of 
a  battery,  by  confluent  wires,  a  long  step  might  be  taken 
towards  disintegration.  Rigid  centralization,  on  the  other 


INTRODUCTION  xvii 

hand,  might  crush  some  particles  to  the  detriment  of  internal 
solidity.  Some  writers  suggest  that  Switzerland  offers  an 
excellent  model  for  Austrian  imitation,  but  forget  that 
Switzerland  has  never  had  an  Imperial  tradition  nor 
been  the  object  of  a  dynastic  policy  separate  from  and 
stronger  than  the  interests  of  any  one  of  the  Helvetian 
races.  The  "  Austrian  "  problem  is  a  problem  sui  generis, 
not  to  be  solved  on  principle  or  in  the  light  of  theory.  The 
line  of  "  Austrian  "  development  seems  to  lie  in  the  direction 
of  continual  readjustment  of  the  relations  between  ethnic 
groups  under  the  auspices  of  the  dynasty.  Such  develop- 
ment must  naturally  involve  both  weakness  and  strength — 
weakness,  by  reason  of  inevitable  loose -jointedness  and  of 
the  tendency  towards  inter-racial  jealousy  and  conflict ;  and 
strength,  by  reason  of  the  subordination  of  all  parts  to  the 
common  head  and  of  the  subtle  and  often  unconscious  current 
that  causes  individual  groups  to  tingle  with  unitary  senti- 
ment at  moments  of  effort  or  exaltation.  No  eye-witness 
of  the  procession  of  the  Austrian  peoples  that  passed  before 
the  Emperor  on  his  Diamond  Jubilee  in  June  1908  can  have 
failed  to  realize  the  immense  reserves  of  devotion  to  the 
Crown  and  its  wearer  that  lie  accumulated  even  in  the 
farthest  districts  of  the  Hapsburg  dominions  ;  nor  can  those 
who  lived  through  the  annexation  crisis  of  the  following 
winter  have  failed  to  hear  the  strong,  regular  pulsations  of 
"  Austrian  "  hearts,  glad  of  an  albeit  insignificant  pretext 
to  beat  in  pride  and  unison.  The  Hapsburg  peoples  are  not 
very  wise,  not  over-cultivated,  not  overburdened  with  political 
sense,  but  they  have  in  them  at  their  best  moments,  be  those 
moments  of  defeat  or  of  triumph,  a  unitary  instinct  that 
seems  to  draw  nourishment  from  their  common  past.  The 
influence  of  the  Imperial  tradition  outlasting  the  sacrifice  of 
the  Holy  Roman-German  Imperial  title ;  the  permanent 
effects  of  the  artificial  but  pitilessly  effective  standardization 
of  political  and  religious  sentiment  by  Jesuit  Fathers  and 
fanatical  monarchs  during  and  after  the  Counter-Reforma- 
tion ;  the  force  of  a  doctrine  of  Divine  Right  incomparably 

b 


xviii  THE   HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

rigid  and  worked  out  consistently  in  and  through  a  State 
conceived  as  a  projection  of  the  Ruler's  person  ;  the  ration- 
alization and  centralization  of  the  governing  apparatus  in 
a  spirit  of  "enlightened  despotism"  by  Joseph  II.  under 
French  encyclopedist  influences  ;  the  brusque  reaction  after 
the  death  of  a  favourite  Austrian  Archduchess,  Marie 
Antoinette,  on  a  French  revolutionary  scaffold  ;  the  rise  of 
Napoleon  and  the  dogged  struggle  for  existence  against  his 
armies  ;  the  growth  of  the  idea  of  Nationality,  abhorred  by 
Metternich  as  "  the  Revolution,"  and  by  him  hampered  and 
oppugned  ;  the  short-lived  triumph  of  liberal  Constitution- 
alism in  1848;  the  dynastic  struggle  with  Hungary,  and 
the  revolts  at  Vienna  and  Prague ;  the  ensuing  years  of 
black  reaction  under  Alexander  Bach,  culminating  in  the 
Concordat  of  1855  ;  the  loss  of  Lombardy  in  1859,  of 
Venice  and  of  German  hegemony  in  1866  ;  the  consequent 
concentration  of  Imperial  and  State  attention  upon  internal 
readjustment,  which,  starting  from  the  Settlement  with 
Hungary  and  the  Austrian  Constitution  of  1867,  led  in 
1879  t°  tne  breaking  of  the  supremacy  of  the  German 
element  in  Austria  at  the  instance  of  the  Crown  and  to  the 
subsequent  rise  of  Slav  influence, — all  these  factors,  events 
and  vicissitudes  seem  to  have  left  an  indelible  mark  on 
Austrian  minds  and  to  have  created  an  odd  sort  of  fellow- 
ship, an  unavowed  feeling  of  retrospective  comradeship  in 
weal  and  woe,  which  no  present  strife  can  entirely  efface 
or  subdue.  And  beneath  this  feeling  lies  the  consciousness 
that,  throughout  the  centuries  with  their  struggles  and 
changes,  one  Imperial  House,  one  Imperial  dynasty,  has 
reigned  over,  if  it  has  not  always  governed,  those  whom  it 
regards  in  a  special  sense  as  "  its  "  peoples. 

A  few  years  ago  it  was  and,  to  some  extent,  it  still  is 
the  fashion  to  consider  the  Hapsburg  realms  as  an  ill- 
assorted  congeries  of  races  and  lands  devoid  of  internal 
cohesion,  a  kind  of  Stoic  polity  made  up  of  ethnic  atoms 
in  fortuitous  concourse  and  ready  to  resolve  itself  into  its 
constituent  elements  whenever  external  pressure  should  be 


INTRODUCTION  xix 

displaced  or  the  personal  prestige  of  Francis  Joseph  should 
be  removed.  Palacky's  phrase,  "If  Austria  did  not  exist  it 
would  be  necessary  to  invent  her,"  suggested,  indeed,  a 
reason — the  reason  of  expediency — for  the  existence  of  the 
Monarchy,  but  failed  adequately  to  express  its  real  raison 
d'etre.  It  seemed  to  indicate  that  the  Monarchy  is  a  useful 
lumber-room  or  scrap-heap  for  broken  or  detached  fragments 
of  other  peoples,  and  gave  no  hint  of  the  truth  that  the  main 
thing  in  the  Monarchy  is  the  living  force  of  the  dynasty. 
Some  developments  in  recent  years  have  doubtless  tended 
to  obscure  this  truth.  The  "  Los  von  Rom,"  i.e.  "  Los  von 
Habsburg  "  movement  of  the  later  'nineties  and  the  sedulous 
Pan-German  propaganda  for  which  it  was  a  cloak  and  a 
pretext ;  the  separatist  tendencies  of  the  Magyar  gentry 
and  of  their  Jewish  allies  in  Hungary ;  the  "  Neo-Slav " 
agitation ;  and,  latterly,  the  growing  sense  of  solidarity 
between  the  various  branches  of  the  Serbo-Croatian  or 
Southern  Slav  race, — these  and  many  minor  phenomena 
have  helped  to  encourage  a  belief  in  the  decrepitude  of  the 
Monarchy  and  to  hide  the  importance  of  the  dynastic  in- 
fluence. The  temptation  to  ignore  fundamental  facts  is 
to-day  very  strong.  A  cheap  daily  press,  eager  for  sensa- 
tions and  prone  to  taboo  "  philosophic  doubt "  as  likely  to 
place  too  heavy  a  strain  upon  the  intelligence  of  its  readers, 
has  discouraged  reflection  and  created  an  appetite  for 
"  knowledge "  in  portable  lozenge  form.  Dynasties,  more- 
over, are  not  positively  popular.  Though  their  potential 
utility  is  freely  recognized,  though  the  Italian,  British,  and 
German  Imperial  thrones  appear  to  stand  firmer  to-day 
than  they  stood  twenty  or  thirty  years  ago,  the  public 
apologists  of  the  monarchical  principle  scarcely  form  a 
majority  among  political  philosophers.  Faith  in  the  Divine 
Right  of  Kings  has  faded  and  is  not  likely  to  revive.  But 
the  record  of  some  republics  and  the  advantages  of  con- 
tinuity secured  by  some  monarchies  have  assuredly  re- 
inforced the  monarchical  position  and  brought  into  play 
utilitarian  considerations  that  would  have  seemed  impious 


xx  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

to  legitimists  of  the  old  school.  Perception  that  "mon- 
archy "  and  "  democracy  "  are  not  antithetical  terms  and  that 
a  crowned  democracy  may  be  as  efficient  a  guardian  of 
individual  right  and  social  liberty  as  any  republic,  is  gradu- 
ally spreading,  and  the  average  man  seems  instinctively  to 
understand  that,  in  the  modern  world,  tyranny  is  more 
likely  to  come  from  oligarchies  than  from  monarchs — less 
indeed  from  aristocratic  or  feudal  than  from  economic  oli- 
garchies, groups  of  industrial  magnates,  financiers,  banks, 
and  distributive  organizations.  Against  tyranny  from  such 
quarters  the  natural  ally  of  the  people  is,  or  might  be,  the 
Crown.  Parliament  is  no  sufficient  safeguard,  for  parlia- 
ments can  be  bought,  influenced,  or  gerrymandered  into 
conscious  or  inadvertent  alliance  with  the  economic  princes 
of  the  world.  Monarchs  and  dynasties  should  have  little 
to  fear  unless  they  so  identify  themselves  or  allow  them- 
selves to  be  identified  with  plutocratic  undertakings  as  to 
seem  to  stand  for  anti-popular  tendencies.  Several  examples 
of  the  danger  of  an  intimate  association  of  rulers  or  reigning 
families  with  money -making  enterprises  might  be  culled 
from  recent  European  history.  One  of  the  reasons  for  the 
popularity  and  prestige  of  the  Austrian  Emperor  among 
his  subjects  is  his  entire  freedom  from  personal  interest  in 
economic  concerns.  He  has  never  been  suspected  of  having 
an  axe  to  grind  for  himself  or  for  his  family.  Like  some 
of  his  greatest  predecessors,  he  has  ever  had  an  eye  for  the 
needs  of  the  people  and  has  played  an  important,  some- 
times a  decisive,  part  in  every  enlargement  of  popular  right 
and  in  every  work  for  the  promotion  of  popular  welfare. 
Despite  some  relapses  into  absolutist  cynicism  and  into  a 
callousness  towards  the  administrative  ill-treatment  of  races 
and  provinces  that  is  scarcely  explicable  by  the  doctrine  of 
respect  for  constitutional  limitations,  the  Crown  in  Austria 
and  in  Hungary  has  frequently  identified  itself  with  the 
people,  even  at  the  cost,  or  perhaps  with  the  object,  of  cur- 
tailing the  power  of  dominant  parties  and  castes.  The 
Crown  is  therefore  not  merely  a  dead-weight  valuable  for 


INTRODUCTION  xxi 

the  automatic  maintenance  of  equilibrium,  but  a  living  force 
consciously  exerting  itself  to  counteract  or  impede  undue 
accumulations  of  social  and  political  power.  Like  the 
Austrian  problem  itself,  the  functions  of  the  Crown  must  be 
expressed  in  terms  of  dynamics,  not  of  statics  ;  and  as  long 
as  the  Crown  exercises  these  functions  so  long  is  it  likely 
to  be  invincible. 

Next  in  importance  to  the  Crown  stand  the  institutions 
of  State,  the  Army,  the  Church,  the  Police,  and  the  Bureau- 
cracy, which  form  the  bony  framework  of  the  body-politic. 
Of  these  institutions  the  Army  is  the  most  important.  Its 
influence  is,  on  the  whole,  educative  both  in  a  pedagogical 
and  in  a  political  sense.  It  is,  in  the  case  of  recruits  from 
the  less  advanced  races,  veritably  a  primary  school,  teaching 
not  only  the  "  three  R's,"  but  cleanliness,  self-control,  and 
habits  of  discipline.  It  inculcates,  moreover,  unitary  senti- 
ment and  devotion  to  the  dynasty.  In  spirit  it  is  far  more 
democratic  than  the  German  army.  The  bulk  of  Austro- 
Hungarian  officers  are  drawn  not,  as  in  Germany,  from  the 
aristocracy  and  the  nobility,  but  rather  from  the  middle  and 
lower  middle  classes.  Austro-Hungarian  officers  are,  for 
the  most  part,  hard-working,  hard-living  men,  unspoiled  by 
luxury,  and  striving  to  subsist  on  little  more  than  their 
meagre  pay.  They  stand  nearer  than  the  German  officers  to 
the  common  soldier.  Cases  of  ill-treatment  of  men  by  officers 
are  rare.  The  subaltern  who  should  restrict  his  intercourse 
with  his  men  to  the  shouting  of  a  few  words  of  command 
would  soon  be  found  wanting.  The  bulk  of  Austro- 
Hungarian  regiments  are  racially  composite.  Their  officers 
must  speak  enough  of  the  languages  of  the  men  to  be  able 
to  supplement  the  German  words  of  command  with  detailed 
instructions  and  explanations  in  the  mother  tongues  of  the 
rank  and  file.  There  results  a  personal  relationship  that 
renders  the  Army  in  Austria- Hungary  a  more  human  and 
humanizing  organization  than  in  Germany.  Race  feeling 
may  be  noticeable  here  and  there,  but,  broadly  speaking, 


xxii  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

the  Army  is  the  greatest  asset  not  only  of  the  Crown  but  of 
the  Monarchy  at  large. 

Of  the  Church  it  is  impossible  to  speak  with  equal 
confidence.  It  has  great  power,  vast  wealth,  and  little  living 
faith.  It  is  an  institution,  not  an  evangelizing  nor  always  a 
purifying  agency.  "In  tutta  Vienna  non  ho  trovato  una  sola 
anima  "  was  the  sad  verdict  of  a  profoundly  religious  foreign 
friar  after  considerable  experience  of  the  Austrian  ecclesiastical 
world.  The  religious  movement,  nicknamed  "  Modernist," 
that  affected  some  of  the  best  minds  in  the  French,  Italian, 
German,  and  English  branches  of  the  Roman  Church,  left 
Austria-Hungary  practically  untouched.  Austria  has  not 
produced  a  single  "  Modernist "  of  note.  One  solitary  priest 
who  pleaded  for  greater  spirituality  in  a  book  called  Nostra 
Maxima  Culpa  was  speedily  silenced  and  is  now  forgotten. 
One  Hungarian  bishop  revealed  spiritual  tendencies  in  a 
series  of  books  and  pastoral  letters,  but  found  himself  con- 
demned and  obliged  to  retract.  These  are  the  only  signs 
of  loftier  aspiration  in  the  Church  of  Austria  and  Hungary. 
The  rest  is  domination,  intrigue,  enjoyment  of  fat  revenues, 
and  maintenance  of  control  over  a  people  very  observant  of 
religious  form  and  very  void  of  religious  feeling.  In  such 
conditions  "  Clericalism  "  flourishes. 

Clericalism  is  one  of  the  cardinal  forces  in  the 
Monarchy,  a  force  not  merely  defensive  and  conservative, 
but  aggressive  and  sometimes  almost  revolutionary.  The 
essence  of  Clericalism  is  the  abuse  of  religious  allegiance 
and  of  legitimate  ecclesiastical  organization  for  political  and 
economic  purposes.  Its  deleterious  effects  on  public  life 
proceed  from  its  inherent  dishonesty — a  dishonesty  com- 
parable to  that  of  the  Jewish  financial  and  political  organiza- 
tions that  work  under  the  guise  of  "  Liberalism."  Clericalism 
claims  transcendental  sanction  for  worldly  manoeuvres,  and 
tricks  out  its  dream  of  theocratical  domination  in  democratic 
raiment.  It  encourages  lip  service  to  religious  forms,  puts 
a  premium  on  clever  hypocrisy,  confounds  consciences  by 
employing  immoral  means  for  the  attainment  of  professedly 


INTRODUCTION  xxiii 

moral  ends,  and  while  pretending  to  lead  the  people  towards 
well-being  in  this  world  and  beatitude  in  the  next,  corrupts 
their  very  fibre.  In  every  Clerical  movement  and  organiza- 
tion there  are  two  categories  of  individuals  who  give  it  force 
and  respectability — the  fanatics  and  the  unconscious.  The 
former  believe  in  the  sanctity  of  their  cause  and,  by  devotion 
to  its  catchwords  and  to  its  leaders,  impart  to  the  movement 
momentum  and  vigour ;  the  latter  form  the  rank  and  file  of 
the  Clerical  army,  following  the  banner  wherever  it  may 
lead,  and  awakening  only  to  a  sense  of  their  position  when 
defeat  or  internal  scandal  rouses  them  from  somnambulism. 
Since  the  Counter-Reformation,  Clericalism  has  played  an 
important  and  usually,  though  not  invariably,  a  sinister 
part  in  Austria.  Save  during  the  periods  when  Imperial 
displeasure  or  counter-intrigue  curtailed  their  power,  the 
Jesuits  have  marshalled  and  led  the  "Black"  battalions.  The 
history  of  the  Jesuit  Counter-Reformation  in  the  Hapsburg 
dominions  forms  one  of  the  most  terrible  chapters  in  the 
annals  of  politico-religious  crime — crime  that  seems  to  have 
blunted  the  moral  sense  and  blighted  the  religious  potentiality 
of  whole  classes  of  Hapsburg  subjects.  During  recent  years 
there  has  been  much  futile  controversy  between  ex-Jesuits 
and  Jesuits  on  the  question  whether  the  doctrine  that  "  the 
end  justifies  the  means  "  or  that  "  evil  may  be  done  in  order 
that  good  may  come"  is  inculcated  by  the  Company  of 
Jesus.  It  would  probably  be  vain  to  search  authentic  Jesuit 
records  and  publications  for  an  enunciation  of  any  such 
principle.  The  Jesuits  have  no  need  to  crystallize  their 
practice  into  traitorous  maxims.  Their  motto  "  Ad  Majorem 
Dei  Gloriam "  covers  all  requirements.  How  can  any  act 
undertaken  for  the  greater  glory  of  a  Deity  who  is  good 
partake  of  the  nature  of  evil  ?  The  fundamental  ambiguity 
and  intellectual  immorality  of  the  Jesuit  attitude  proceed 
from  its  incompatibility  with  the  postulates  of  simple 
Christianity.  Christian  morality  is  frankly  absolute.  For 
it  Good  is  Good,  and  proceeds  from  God,  the  Fountain-head 
of  Goodness  ;  Evil  is  Evil,  and  proceeds  from  the  Devil,  the 


xxiv  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

Father  of  Lies.  Christian  consciences  are  moulded  to  dis- 
tinguish instinctively  between  good  and  evil,  and  are 
exhorted  to  cleave  to  the  one  and  eschew  the  other.  Into 
this  world  of  moral  antithesis  comes  the  Jesuit  with  his 
doctrine  of  relativity,  maintaining,  in  practice  if  not  in 
precept,  that  all  is  good  provided  it  redound  to  the  greater 
glory  of  God,  of  which  the  Company  of  Jesus  is  the  special 
custodian.  The  immorality  of  the  Jesuit  position  depends 
not  upon  the  thesis  of  the  relativity  of  good  and  evil  which, 
as  a  philosophical  proposition,  is  sounder  than  the  orthodox 
Christian  thesis,  but  in  the  adoption  of  such  a  position 
within  the  pale  of  Christianity,  and  under  the  aegis  of  the 
Vicar  of  Christ.  However  deftly  subtle  theologians  may 
mask  the  fundamental  contradiction  between  the  Jesuit 
position  and  the  simple  sense  of  Christian  doctrine,  the 
contradiction  remains  and  perennially  causes  "  little  ones " 
to  stumble. 

Nevertheless  it  would  be  unjust  to  cast  the  blame  for  the 
demoralization  of  Austria  on  to  Jesuitism  and  Clericalism 
alone.  A  part  scarcely  less  deleterious  has  been  played 
during  the  last  generation  by  anti-Clerical  "  Liberalism." 
Like  most  things  Austrian,  "  Liberalism/'  gradually  acquired 
a  significance  very  different  from  its  ostensible  meaning. 
Its  catchwords  "freedom,"  "progress,"  "culture,"  "civiliza- 
tion," originally  the  rallying-cries  of  democratic  enthusiasts 
and  reformers,  gradually  became  mere  shibboleths  by  which 
a  rapacious  clique  recognized  its  own  partisans.  The 
natural  and  healthy  reaction  against  the  State  "  system " 
of  Alexander  Bach,  a  system  that  co-ordinated  with  mar- 
vellous skill  the  agencies  of  the  Police,  the  Church,  the 
Bureaucracy  and  the  Army  in  the  work  of  stamping  the 
progressive  spirit  out  of  Austria,  brought  into  power  during 
the  later  'sixties  and  the  'seventies  of  last  century,  a  party 
that  strove  for  a  time  to  correct  the  worst  anachronisms  and 
to  remedy  the  most  flagrant  abuses  of  the  obscurantist  past. 
But  "  liberty "  and  "  freedom "  in  Austria  then  meant,  in 
most  cases,  liberty  for  the  clever,  quick-quitted,  indefatigable 


INTRODUCTION  xxv 

Jew  to  prey  upon  a  public  and  a  political  world  totally 
unfit  for  defence  against  or  competition  with  him.  Fresh 
from  Talmud  and  synagogue,  and  consequently  trained  to 
conjure  with  the  law  and  skilled  in  intrigue,  the  invading 
Semite  arrived  from  Galicia  or  Hungary  and  carried  every- 
thing before  him.  Unknown  and  therefore  unchecked  by 
public  opinion,  without  any  "  stake  in  the  country "  and 
therefore  reckless,  he  sought  only  to  gratify  his  insatiable 
appetite  for  wealth  and  power.  The  Press,  which  he  invaded, 
corrupted,  and  dominated,  denounced  resistance  to  him  as 
"  religious  intolerance,"  and  clamour  for  protection  against 
him  as  "  anti-Liberal."  Little  by  little  the  "  Liberal "  Jew 
established  himself,  as  he  thought,  in  an  impregnable 
position.  But  the  excess  of  the  evil  brought,  if  not  remedy, 
at  least  a  palliative  in  the  ugly  form  of  an  anti-Semitic 
agitation  that  drew  strength  from  the  financial  and  building 
crisis  of  1873.  For  that  crisis  the  Jews  were  not  alone 
responsible,  though  their  unbridled  speculative  habits  and 
mushroom  fortunes  undoubtedly  started  the  speculative 
mania  which  led  to  the  crash ;  and  while  the  aristocracy 
and  the  middle  classes,  which  had  been  caught  by  the  mania, 
lost  heavily  in  the  inevitable  catastrophe,  the  Jews  extricated 
themselves  more  nimbly  and  were  little  the  worse.  Resent- 
ment and  envy  rapidly  found  vent  in  an  anti-Jewish  outcry 
that  made  of  the  Jew  a  scapegoat  for  the  sins  of  the 
community.  The  Jewish  "  Liberal "  press  hastened  to 
denounce  as  "  religious "  intolerance  this  not  unnatural 
reaction  ;  and  the  Catholic  Church,  taking  the  hint,  added 
a  "  religious "  count  to  the  general  indictment.  The  anti- 
Semitic  movement  might  have  subsided  as  soon  as  the  Jews 
had  learned  the  lesson  of  prudence,  had  not  a  demagogue  of 
genius,  Dr.  Karl  Lueger,  placed  himself  at  its  head  and  used 
it  to  bear  him  aloft  to  the  Burgomastership  of  Vienna. 
Though  often  a  Jew-baiter,  Lueger  was  no  Jew-hater.  He 
knew  the  Jews  too  well  to  cherish  indiscriminate  rancour 
against  them,  however  wildly  he  may  have  talked  in  his 
political  harangues.  Some  of  his  close  friends  throughout 


xxvi  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

life  were  Jews,  to  one  of  whom  he  paid,  shortly  before  his 
death,  a  public  tribute  of  gratitude  and  admiration.  Had 
his  political  career  not  been  blocked  at  the  outset  by  the 
dog-in-the-manger  attitude  of  the  Vienna  "  Liberals,"  Lueger 
might  perhaps  have  saved  the  "  Liberal "  party  from  itself 
and  have  prolonged  its  lease  of  power.  But  he  was  deter- 
mined to  find  his  opportunity,  and  found  it  in  leading  the 
"  Christian  Social  anti-Semitic "  forces  to  an  assault  upon 
the  strong  places  of  Jewish  and  capitalistic  liberalism.  His 
great  political  talent,  his  personal  integrity,  his  ability  to  put 
Viennese  ideas  into  Viennese  words,  his  freedom  from  Jewish 
Liberal  "  progressive  "  cant,  gained  him  an  ascendancy  over 
his  native  city  and  a  prestige  in  the  Empire  such  as  few 
Austrian  politicians  had  previously  enjoyed.  His  often  ruth- 
less agitation  against  the  Jews,  his  fiery  denunciations  of 
their  malpractices,  rendered  in  the  long  run  a  service  to  the 
Jews  themselves  by  compelling  them,  under  pressure,  to 
observe  a  circumspection  of  which  they  had  previously 
seemed  incapable.  The  better  Jews,  indeed,  soon  recognized 
that  Lueger  had  been  to  them  a  blessing  in  disguise  by 
tempering  the  immoderation  that  is  a  prominent  Jewish 
failing.  On  the  other  hand,  Lueger's  agitation  was  attended 
by  many  drawbacks.  While  it  rendered  an  immense  service 
to  Austria  by  rousing  an  "  Austrian  "  consciousness,  and  by 
revealing  to  a  public  opinion  which  decades  of  pseudo-liberal 
influence  had  hypnotized,  the  real  character  of  the  Magyar 
State  and  of  the  Austrian  position  in  regard  to  Hungary,  it 
tended  to  degrade  political  controversy  to  a  pothouse  level 
and  to  raise  local  interests  and  cupidities  to  the  rank 
of  political  principles.  It  set  party  advantages  above 
social  and  electoral  justice,  facilitated  a  revival  of  militant 
Clericalism  in  a  peculiarly  dangerous  form,  and  replaced, 
albeit  inadvertently,  a  system  of  "  Liberal "  corruption 
and  Jewish  tyranny  by  a  "  Christian  Social "  concatenation 
of  interests  and  offices  scarcely  less  tyrannical  and  corrupt. 
In  a  word,  the  employment  of  impure  means  to  attain 
ends  not  in  themselves  impure  entailed  consequences 


INTRODUCTION  xxvii 

almost  as  deleterious  as  the  evils  Lueger  had  set  out  to 
combat 

The  importance  of  Lueger  must,  however,  be  measured 
by  the  change  he  wrought  in  the  character  of  Austrian 
politics,  and  especially  in  the  politics  of  the  Austrian  Germans. 
He  killed  the  "  Los  von  Rom  "  movement  and  its  potential 
disloyalty  to  the  House  of  Hapsburg ;  and  he  gave  to  the 
Austrian  bureaucratic  machine  an  impulse  stronger  than  any 
it  had  received  since  the  days  of  Joseph  II.  The  bureau- 
cracy is,  in  Austria,  the  material  of  which  the  fabric  of  the 
State  is  composed.  The  English  expression  "  civil  service  " 
is  not  a  synonym  for  "  bureaucracy."  Despite  "  officialism  " 
and  "  red  tape,"  the  English  civil  service  has  not  yet  fully 
acquired  a  consciousness  that  it  is  not  a  "service"  but  a 
government,  the  government.  In  Austria  this  conscious- 
ness exists  and  is  assiduously  cultivated.  The  idea  of 
a  "  civil  service "  conveys  to  English  minds  a  notion  that 
the  Departments  of  State  serve  both  the  Crown  and  the 
public.  The  Austrian  bureaucracy,  on  the  contrary,  con- 
ceives itself  theoretically  as  the  executive  instrument  of 
the  will  of  the  Crown,  and  practically  as  invested  with  a 
mission  to  govern  the  public.  A  wide  gulf  still  yawns 
between  the  Anglo-Saxon  standpoint  that  government  is 
the  delegation  by  the  governed  of  certain  administrative 
and  disciplinary  functions  to  organs  created  for  the  purpose, 
and  the  Roman  conception  that  government  is  a  good  in 
itself,  something  superior  to  the  governed  in  its  nature  and 
attributes.  That  the  State  exists  for  the  service  of  the 
public  is  a  conception  foreign  to  the  bureaucratic  mind, 
which  is  moulded  on  the  principle  that  the  community 
exists  for  the  State  and  derives  its  well-being  from  and 
through  the  State.  The  members  of  the  bureaucracy,  with 
their  carefully  graduated  hierarchy  reaching  from  the  copy- 
ing-clerk to  the  steps  of  the  throne,  form  a  privileged  class 
whose  maintenance  absorbs  a  large  proportion  of  the  public 
revenues.  It  is  true  that  in  Austria  there  long  lingered 
the  tradition  inspired  by  Joseph  II.  that  the  privileged 


xxviii          THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

position  of  the  bureaucratic  class  connotes  an  obligation 
to  fulfil  certain  duties  and  to  give  proof  positive  of  its 
superiority  by  promoting  the  general  welfare,  checking 
abuses,  and  administering  national  resources  faithfully  with- 
out other  sanction  or  reward  than  the  consciousness  of  duty 
well  done.  The  Josephine  tradition,  despite  its  Germanizing 
and  centralizing  tendencies,  produced  much  of  what  was 
best  in  the  Austrian  administration.  It  infused  a  certain 
idealism  into  bureaucratic  routine  and  inculcated  the  doc- 
trine that  the  functionaries  of  the  State  were  de  facto  if 
not  de  jure  the  trustees  of  the  community  at  large.  This 
comparatively  liberal  tradition  survived  the  "  Systems "  of 
Metternich  and  Bach,  the  Concordat  and  the  various  con- 
stitutional experiments  of  the  early  'sixties,  and  lasted  till 
nearly  the  end  of  last  century.  The  rise  of  the  Christian 
Social  movement  under  Lueger's  leadership  marked,  in 
a  sense,  the  end  of  the  Josephine  tradition  and  the  be- 
ginning of  a  semi -Clerical  tendency  towards  State  and 
municipal  socialism  that  has  aggravated  the  Austrian 
bureaucratic  problem  and  has  to  some  extent  changed  its 
very  character. 

Great  social  and  political  movements  usually  have  their 
source  "  beneath  the  threshold "  of  public  consciousness. 
They  are  rarely  "  created "  by  any  single  man  or  circum- 
stance. Ideas  germinate  simultaneously,  often  unconsciously, 
in  many  minds,  but  come  to  maturity  only  in  minds  fertile 
or  spacious  enough  to  permit  of  their  development.  The 
supreme  artist,  the  poet,  the  convincing  writer,  the  popular 
leader,  the  great  statesman,  rarely  "  create  "  in  the  sense  of 
producing  something  new  in  substance.  They  give  a  new 
form,  corresponding  to  the  tastes,  needs,  or  instincts  of  the 
day,  or  of  the  morrow,  to  substances  already  awaiting  the 
shaping  hand.  Too  great  originality  is  apt  to  be  sterile. 
It  meets  no  need  and  finds  no  mate  for  the  work  of  pro- 
pagation. Judged  by  the  highest  "  creative "  standards 
Lueger  was  not  a  great  man ;  judged  by  Austrian  and 
Viennese  standards  he  was  greater  than  any  of  his  con- 


INTRODUCTION  xxix 

temporaries.  He  represented  the  instinctive  revolt  of  the 
average  man  against  the  tyranny  of  conscienceless  liquid 
wealth,  the  protest  of  the  small  producer  or  tradesman 
against  the  crushing  force  of  agglomerations  of  capital,  the 
rebellion  of  all  save  the  "  fittest "  against  the  cruelties  of 
ruthless  competition.  Unhampered  by  the  notions  of  eco- 
nomic schoolmen,  he  brought  to  bear  upon  political  and 
economic  problems  the  sober  sense  of  a  robust  intelligence. 
Whereas  Socialism  of  the  Marxist  type  regards  economic 
development  as  a  natural  process  tending  towards  the  sub- 
jugation of  individual  initiative  by  the  force  of  capitalist 
organization  until  that  organization  shall  itself  be  expropri- 
ated by  the  revolutionary  force  of  the  organized  proletariate, 
the  "  Christian "  Socialism  of  Lueger  sought  immediate 
solutions  for  social  problems  in  two  different  and  apparently 
— but  only  apparently — contradictory  directions.  While,  on 
the  one  hand,  he  turned  resolutely  towards  the  protection  of 
the  "  small  man  " — the  butcher,  the  baker,  the  greengrocer, 
the  chimney  sweep,  and  the  tinker, — against  the  power  of 
the  large,  mainly  Jewish,  enterprises  which  in  Germany  were 
crushing  the  "  small  man  "  out  of  existence,  he  advocated, 
on  the  other  hand,  a  consistent  policy  of  State  and  municipal 
Socialism.  He  gave  a  powerful  impulse  to,  if  he  did  not 
actually  inspire,  the  "  middle-class  policy"  of  the  Government, 
a  policy  based  on  a  belief  that  society  may  be  the  poorer 
for  the  destruction  of  small  independent  existences,  and  that 
industrial  or  commercial  "  efficiency "  is  not  the  last  word 
of  social  or  political  well-being.  Under  the  influence  of  the 
ideas  he  represented,  legislative  checks  were  placed  upon 
the  growth  of  monopolies  ;  wages  and  spheres  of  competition 
were  regulated  ;  and  a  deliberate  attempt  was  made  to 
individualize  the  workman  and  to  personalize  his  work. 
Ten  or  twenty  years  hence  this  part  of  his  policy  may  be 
pronounced  a  "  failure,"  many  of  the  artificial  restrictions  it 
imposed  may  have  to  be  removed,  but  it  will  not  necessarily 
follow  that  they  were  useless.  They  may  be  seen  to  have 
served  a  good  purpose  in  allowing  time  to  be  gained  for 


xxx  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

maturer  consideration  of  social  questions,  in  damming  back 
the  tide  of  raw  capitalism,  and  in  encouraging  a  sound 
belief  that  the  banker  and  the  trust  magnate  do  not  rule  by 
right  divine. 

This  part  of  Lueger's  policy  was  carried  out  chiefly  by 
the  bureaucracy  to  whose  instincts  it  appealed.  It  afforded 
the  bureaucracy,  in  fact,  another  opportunity  to  govern 
and  to  establish  its  authority  over  a  further  region  of 
public  life.  But  the  curse  of  every  bureaucratic  system  is 
that,  as  soon  as  any  department  or  ministry  has  been 
created,  it  develops  a  consciousness  of  its  own  and  becomes 
an  end  in  itself  with  interests,  ambitions,  and  instincts  of 
self-preservation  quite  apart  from  the  purpose  it  was  estab- 
lished to  fulfil.  Similarly,  in  the  other  direction  of  Lueger's 
activity — the  municipalization  and  the  nationalization  of 
public  services, — the  object  of  protecting  the  public  against 
capitalistic  exploitation  was,  in  some  though  not  in  all 
circumstances,  attained  at  the  cost  of  creating  fresh  armies 
of  bureaucrats  to  do,  less  efficiently  and  more  expensively, 
work  previously  done  by  the  servants  of  private  companies 
or  individuals.  This  disadvantage  is  inherent  in  all  muni- 
cipalization and  nationalization.  It  is  inevitable  and  becomes 
tolerable  only  when  it  clearly  represents  a  lesser  evil  or  the 
avoidance  of  a  greater  risk.  Nationalization  for  the  sake  of 
nationalization  is  not  only  expensive  and  productive  of 
inefficiency,  but  tends  to  become  politically  dangerous  by 
creating  a  class  of  able-bodied  dependents  upon  the  public 
exchequer  whose  services  to  the  community  are  rarely  com- 
mensurate with  the  power  they  wield  and  with  the  privileges 
they  enjoy.  They  are  apt,  moreover,  to  form,  voluntarily  or 
involuntarily,  electoral  clienteles  of  which  the  influence  may 
eventually  compromise  the  working  of  representative  institu- 
tions. Indeed,  Lueger  and  his  lieutenants  deliberately  used 
municipalization  to  reinforce  their  electoral  following.  They 
troubled  little  about  theories  and  ulterior  effects.  They  saw 
an  advantage  to  be  gained,  an  abuse  to  be  remedied,  a 
danger  to  be  averted,  and  took  the  shortest  road  to  their 


INTRODUCTION  xxxi 

object.  As  the  Jews  represented  capitalist  individualism 
masquerading  as  "  Liberalism,"  Lueger  struck  at  them — 
but  met  his  match  in  the  Social  Democratic  movement 
which,  under  Jewish  leadership,  gathered  force  as  rapidly  as 
"Liberalism"  lost  it.  "Red"  Socialism  compelled  the  "Black" 
Socialists  under  Lueger  to  assume  the  defensive.  He,  the 
genial,  irreverent  demagogue,  gradually  became  the  champion 
of  law  and  order,  the  darling  of  the  Church,  a  pillar  of  the 
Throne,  a  symbol  of  all  that  is  positively  and  consciously 
conservative  in  the  State.  In  this  posture  he  died,  after 
having  set  an  indelible  stamp  on  modern  Austria.  He 
left  no  successor,  and  his  associates  have  since  disgraced 
and  degraded  his  work.  But  he  had  shown  that  even  a 
sceptical,  artistically  emotional,  intellectually  lazy,  and  politely 
conceited  folk  like  the  Viennese  will  respond  to  the  touch 
of  a  real  leader,  and  that  the  non-Viennese  Austrians  who,  in 
virile  quality  are  superior  to  those  of  the  capital,  rise  to  the 
idea  of  common  patriotism  and  joint  effort  when  it  is 
proclaimed  with  direct  conviction.  When  a  new  Lueger 
appears  he  may  be  neither  anti-Semitic,  nor  Clerical, 
nor  even  "  Christian  Social,"  but  may  need  to  bend  his 
energies  towards  the  liberation  of  the  people  from  bureau- 
cratic tyranny  as  Lueger  strove  to  preserve  it  from  the  grasp 
of  rampant  and  immature  capitalism.  But  it  will  be  long 
before  the  Lueger  tradition  dies — the  tradition  that  Austria, 
with  all  her  faults,  weaknesses,  and  "  Asiatic  "  characteristics, 
is  a  living,  growing,  cohesive,  not  a  decrepit  State  ;  that  the 
interests  of  the  people  are  mainly  coincident  with  those  of 
the  dynasty  ;  that  the  Austrian  Germans,  though  the  leading, 
are  not  the  only  State-preserving  element,  and  that  their 
first  duty  is  to  their  country  and  their  second  to  their  race ; 
that  Slav  and  Jew  are  entitled  to  equality  of  treatment  and 
consideration  in  so  far  as  they  are  loyal  to  Crown  and 
Fatherland,  but  that  whoever  dallies  with  trans -frontier 
affinities  is  unworthy  of  his  "  Austrian  "  birthright.  Lueger 
at  his  best  represented  what  is  strongest  in  the  Austrian 
"  soul,"  a  soul  still  inadequate  to  its  body  and  still  seeking 


xxxii  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

for  opportunities  of  expression  and  growth.  Before  its 
opportunity  is  found,  the  body  may  pass  through  many  a 
convulsion  and  even  undergo  changes  of  form.  Change  and 
convulsion  should,  however,  herald  not  the  approach  of 
death  but  rather  the  entrance  into  a  new  and  stronger 
life. 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  MONARCH  AND  THE  MONARCHY 

So  much  attention  has  been  paid  to  single  aspects  of  the 
Austro-Hungarian  problem,  and  so  much  stress  laid  upon 
its  complexity,  that  the  essential  character  of  the  Hapsburg 
Monarchy  as  a  dynastic  estate  has  been  lost  sight  of. 
"Austria"  has  been  conceived  by  most  modern  writers  as 
a  multiplicity,  whereas  it  is  indispensable  that  it  be  regarded 
in  the  first  place  as  a  monarchical  unity.  Homage  of  a 
sorry  sort  has,  indeed,  been  paid  to  the  importance  of  the 
Emperor  Francis  Joseph  by  the  dissemination  of  the  view 
that,  upon  his  death,  his  realms  may  fall  asunder ;  but  this 
questionable  tribute  has  been  offered  rather  to  the  person  of 
a  single  monarch  than  to  the  monarchical  office  he  has  filled 
for  more  than  two  generations.  The  degree  in  which  the 
occupant  is  transcended  by  the  office,  and  the  individual 
ruler  by  the  monarchical  function,  has  not  been  adequately 
recognized.  Confusion  of  thought  has  resulted,  and  from  it 
an  attitude  of  apprehensive  bewilderment  in  regard  to  all 
things  Austrian. 

A  further  cause  of  confusion  has  been  the  spread  of 
inaccurate  notions  of  the  power  of  the  Hapsburg  Crown. 
Since  Austria  is  to  all  appearances  a  Constitutional  and 
Parliamentary  Empire,  and  Hungary  a  Kingdom  proud  in 
the  possession  of  a  "thousand-year-old  Constitution,"  the 
Austro-Hungarian  Monarch,  that  is  to  say,  the  Emperor 
Francis  Joseph,  has  been  conceived  as  a  passive  element  of 
equilibrium,  as  a  kind  of  keystone  in  a  tottering  arch,  a 

£ 


2  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

keystone,  moreover,  of  such  special  weight  and  shape  as 
to  be  unique  and  individually  indispensable.  The  truth, 
amply  demonstrated  by  Hapsburg  history  and  instinctively 
recognized  by  the  majority  of  Hapsburg  subjects,  is  that  the 
passive  functions  of  the  Crown  are  of  minor  importance  in 
comparison  with  its  functions  as  an  active,  driving,  sometimes 
aggressive  force  that  has  frequently  proved  itself  stronger 
than  any  other  force  in  its  dominions.  If,  in  regard  to  the 
passive  functions  of  the  Crown,  metaphor  be  permissible, 
they  may  be  likened  to  those  of  the  gyroscope,  in  resisting 
automatically  the  influences  that  tend  to  deflect  the  moving 
structure  of  Hapsburg  states  and  peoples  from  the  course 
marked  out  by  dynastic  interest,  and,  even  when  exposed  for 
a  moment  to  checks  or  perturbations  too  violent  to  be  imme- 
diately withstood,  spinning  on  noiselessly  in  discharge  of  a 
self-contained  mission  to  correct  the  deflection  and  restore 
continuity. 

Yet  it  may  be  contended  that  while  Hapsburg  history 
reveals  the  potential  importance  of  the  monarchical  office, 
it  reveals  likewise  the  importance  of  the  "  personal  equation  " 
and  the  untoward  effects  of  mental  insufficiency  or  positive 
wrongheadedness  on  the  part  of  individual  rulers.  Hence, 
it  may  be  argued,  the  supreme  importance  of  the  Emperor 
Francis  Joseph,  whose  personal  characteristics  are  known 
and  whose  devotion  to  duty,  incomparable  experience,  and 
statesmanlike  wisdom  form  an  invaluable  asset  in  the  political 
balance-sheet  of  his  dominions  and  of  Europe  ;  whereas  the 
characteristics  of  his  presumptive  successors  are  unknown, 
or,  in  so  far  as  known,  hardly  promise  adequately  to  replace 
those  of  the  veteran  Emperor.  Though,  in  point  of  fact, 
the  personal  and  political  characteristics  of  the  Emperor 
Francis  Joseph  are  less  known  than  they  are  commonly 
supposed  to  be,  while  those  of  his  presumptive  successors 
cannot  fairly  be  judged  before  their  heads  have  borne  the 
weight  of  the  Crown  and  their  shoulders  the  burden  of 
dynastic  responsibility,  it  is  necessary  to  insist  that,  in 
Austria-Hungary,  the  only  misgivings  entertained  in  regard 


( 


THE  MONARCH  AND  THE  MONARCHY   3 

to  the  future  concern  not  the  practical  certainty  that  the 
Heir  Presumptive  will  succeed  smoothly  to  the  Imperial 
estate,  but  the  possibility  that,  after  succeeding,  he  may 
use  the  immense  power  inherent  in  the  monarchical  function 
in  order  to  pursue  a  policy  distasteful  to  some  sections  of  his 
subjects.  If  apprehension  there  be,  it  is  not  based  on  fear 
lest  the  demise  of  the  Crown  involve  the  demise  or  dis- 
integration of  the  Monarchy,  but  lest  trouble  arise  during 
the  adjustment  of  things  to  the  new  Monarch's  conception 
of  his  dynastic  "  mission." 

It  is  hard  to  escape  the  influence  of  contemporary  notions 
and  phenomena.  Even  the  few  octogenarians  who  remember 
the  revolution  of  1848,  the  abdication  of  Ferdinand  and  the 
accession  of  Francis  Joseph,  the  long  series  of  errors  and 
misfortunes  that  marked  the  process  of  transition  from 
Unitary  Absolutism  to  Constitutional  Dualism,  find  it  diffi- 
cult to  recall  the  conception  of  the  Emperor  Francis  Joseph's 
personal  and  political  character  that  prevailed  in  Austria  and 
abroad  throughout  the  first  half  of  his  reign.  Forty-six  years 
of  peace,  broken  only  by  the  Bosnian  campaign  of  1878—79, 
have  cast  a  retrospective  glamour  over  the  earlier  decades, 
and  have  dulled  the  vision  even  of  eyes  accustomed  to  detect 
permanent  features  beneath  changing  forms.  Yet  it  is  un- 
deniable that  the  experiments  undertaken  and  the  mistakes 
committed  between  1848  and  1867  throw  more  light  upon 
the  veritable  nature  of  the  Hapsburg  Monarchy  and  the 
power  of  the  Crown  than  the  developments  since  the  Dual 
System  was  established.  Only  those  who  hold  the  Dual 
System  to  be  the  final  form  of  the  Monarchy,  and  believe 
the  influence  of  the  Crown  to  be  subordinate  to  the  observ- 
ance of  Dualist  principles,  can  ignore  the  changes  that  have 
been  wrought  in  the  Dual  System  itself,  or  close  their  minds 
to  the  possibility  that  the  Crown  may  eventually  be  com- 
pelled by  those  very  considerations  of  dynastic  interest  which 
inspired  the  settlement  of  1867  to  recast  the  constitutional 
framework  of  its  dominions  in  another  mould.  It  is  no 
reflection  upon  the  Constitutional  loyalty  of  the  Emperor 


4  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

Francis  Joseph  to  urge  that,  were  he  a  younger  man,  he 
himself  might  be  driven  to  undo  in  part  the  work  of  his 
own  hands  ;  nor  would  it  be  just  to  question  a  priori  the 
wisdom  of  his  successors  should  changed  conditions  and 
altered  necessities  dictate  a  departure  from  the  later  methods 
of  Francis  Joseph.  Each  Hapsburg  ruler  interprets  in  his 
own  way  the  "  mission  "  with  which  he  believes  Providence 
to  have  entrusted  him. 

In  the  Empire  of  Austria  or,  as  its  clumsy  constitutional 
title  runs,  in  the  "  Kingdoms  and  Lands  represented  in  the 
Reichsrath,"  the  idea  of  popular  sovereignty  has  never  been 
recognized.  Under  the  Fundamental  Statute,  or  Constitution, 
granted  in  December  1867,  the  Emperor  is,  indeed,  bound 
to  exercise  his  executive  power  through  certain  organs  of 
the  State,  and  the  constitutional  validity  of  his  acts  depends, 
as  regards  Imperial  matters,  upon  the  assent  of  the  Reichs- 
rath or  Imperial  Parliament,  and,  in  provincial  matters,  upon 
the  assent  of  the  local  Diets.  But  he  remains  none  the  less 
Emperor  by  Divine  right,  and  is  far  from  wearing  his  crown, 
like  the  King  of  Italy,  "  by  the  grace  of  God  and  the  will 
of  the  Nation."  The  peoples  of  Austria  are  the  peoples 
of  the  Emperor  almost  in  a  feudal  sense  ;  and  though  the 
"  Magyar  Nation  "  stands  in  a  different  relationship  to  the 
Wearer  of  the  Sacred  Crown  of  St.  Stephen,  the  constitu- 
tional power  of  the  crowned  King  of  Hungary  is  far  greater 
than  some  current  Magyar  political  literature  may  suggest. 
The  "  Magyar  nation,"  in  the  Constitutional  sense,  con- 
sists practically  of  those  citizens  whose  political  rights  the 
Constitution  expressly  recognizes.  A  favourite  phrase  of 
Magyar  orators  when  descanting  upon  the  dangers  of 
universal  suffrage  is  that  "  the  bastions  of  the  Constitution  " 
can  only  be  opened  to  citizens  of  recognized  Magyar 
sentiment.  The  conception  has  not  greatly  changed  since 
the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  when,  in  his  Tri- 
partitum  Code,  Verboczy  defined  the  "  people "  as  the 
"  prelates,  barons,  and  other  magnates,  also  the  nobles, 
but  not  the  commoners."  Though  many  of  the  Magyar 


THE  MONARCH  AND  THE  MONARCHY   5 

commoners  have  been  enfranchised  since  1848,  the  "nation" 
in  Hungary  is  still  a  close  corporation  standing  in  a  special 
relationship  to  the  Monarch  with  whom  it  makes  a  fresh 
bargain  at  every  coronation.  Much  of  the  uncertainty  in 
regard  to  the  future  of  the  Hapsburg  dominions  springs 
from  apprehension  lest  the  future  monarch  should  conceive 
his  "  mission  "  to  consist  in  the  reduction  of  the  Magyars 
to  a  position  in  the  Monarchy  commensurate  with  their 
numerical  importance  and  with  their  status  as  a  minority 
among  the  citizens  of  Hungary ;  and  lest  he,  drawing  his 
inspiration  from  the  reign  of  Joseph  II.  rather  than  from 
the  later  years  of  Francis  Joseph,  should  seek  to  substitute 
for  the  Dual  System  some  form  of  centralized  unity.  Such 
an  effort  would  be  by  no  means  unprecedented  in  Hapsburg 
history,  and,  if  deftly  and  vigorously  made,  by  no  means 
certain  to  fail. 

The  Hapsburgs  have  been  defined  by  a  modern  Austrian 
writer l  as  "  born  artists,"  in  that  they  lack  the  sense  of 
reality  and  create  a  special  world  for  themselves,  each 
according  to  his  own  temperament  or  "  mission."  Lands, 
peoples,  and  men  are  their  materials.  In  this  respect 
Ferdinand  II.  and  Joseph  II.  were  the  most  typical. 
Ferdinand,  drawing  his  inspiration  from  the  Virgin  Mary 
under  Jesuit  guidance,  accomplished  the  terrible  miracle  of 
transforming  Austria  in  thirty  years  from  a  Protestant  into 
a  Catholic  country.  Determined  to  save  the  souls  of  his 
people,  he  fulfilled  to  the  letter  his  saying,  "  Better  a  desert 
than  a  land  of  heretics."  The  thoroughness  of  his  work, 
and  the  consistency  with  which  he  earned,  by  fire  and  sword, 
confiscation  and  banishment,  torture  and  execution,  his 
proud  title,  Catholicae  Fidei  Acerrimus  Defensor,  are  hard  to 
realize  in  our  modern  world  of  tentative  policies  and  halting 
performance.  Ferdinand  II.  made  Austria  materially  and 
morally  a  desert,  some  parts  of  which  have  never  since 
blossomed  ;  but  he  made  it  Catholic.  Joseph  II.,  the  en- 
throned Jacobin,  drawing  his  inspiration  from  the  Goddess 
1  Hermann  Bahr,  Wien,  pp.  19-30. 


6  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

of  Reason,  sought  to  transform  his  realms  and  peoples 
according  to  a  strictly  logical,  rational  plan.  "  His  people 
is  to  be  what  he  thinks  a  people  of  free  citizens  ought  to 
be,"  writes  Hermann  Bahr  in  a  brilliant  historical  analysis 
of  the  Hapsburg  spirit.  "This  he  decrees.  His  idea 
determines  the  life  of  the  nation.  He  enquires  not  whether 
the  nation  will,  or  can,  whether  conditions  allow  it  to 
conform  itself  to  his  idea  ;  nor  understands  that  the  child 
cannot  suddenly  deny  its  father,  that  to-day  can  never  quite 
abjure  yesterday,  that  nothing  human  arises  by  word  of 
command.  '  All  this  has  now  ceased,  my  Lord  Chancellor !' 
he  writes  to  Kolowrat.  What  existed  before  him  has 
suddenly  to  cease.  A  new  world  has  to  begin.  And  by  a 
stroke  of  the  pen,  his  bundle  of  matrimonially  -  acquired 
provinces  is  appointed  a  modern  state.  He  believes  that 
human  life  can  be  '  drafted '  on  paper.  '  Abolish '  and 
'  transform  '  are  his  favourite  words  ;  they  constantly  recur. 
.  .  .  His  '  transformation  '  proceeds  not  from  the  inner 
necessities  of  men  and  things,  but  from  '  principles,'  from 
Reason.  '  An  Empire  over  which  I  rule  must  be  governed 
according  to  my  principles.  .  .  .  Since  I  ascended  the 
throne  and  donned  the  first  diadem  of  the  world,  I  have 
made  Philosophy  the  Lawgiver  of  my  Empire.  In  pursuance 
of  philosophical  logic  Austria  will  be  given  another  form.' 
Here  hides  the  secret  of  all  Hapsburg  policy  :  Austria  is 
always  to  be  given  another  form  in  pursuance  of  some  logic 
or  other.  To  let  her  grow  by  herself,  according  to  her 
nature,  does  not  occur  to  the  Hapsburgs.  It  is  always  the 
mind  that  is  to  transform  everything,  the  Ruler's  mind 
alone." 2 

Bahr,  however,  does  less  than  justice  to  the  inherent 
soundness  of  many  of  Joseph's  "  principles,"  and  overlooks 
the  fact  that  but  for  his  untimely  death  he  might  himself 
have  corrected  the  asperities  of  his  "  System,"  instead  of 
withdrawing,  in  a  fit  of  death-bed  despondency,  most  of  the 
decrees  that  embodied  it.  Indeed,  modern  Hungarian 

1   JVien,  pp.  26-27.  2   Wien,  pp.  26-28. 


THE  MONARCH  AND  THE  MONARCHY   7 

writers  like  the  historian  Professor  Henrik  Marczali  admit 
that,  notwithstanding  the  resistance  of  the  Magyars  to  the 
reforming  policy  of  Joseph  (whom  they  nicknamed  a  kirdly 
kalapos,  or  "  hatted,"  i.e.  uncrowned  King),  his  death  and 
failure  were  a  misfortune  for  Hungary.  The  mind  of  Joseph 
cannot  be  better  studied  than  in  the  remarkable  Memo- 
randum on  the  condition  of  the  Austrian  Monarchy  1  which 
he  addressed  to  his  mother,  the  Empress  Maria  Theresa,  in 
1765,  fifteen  years  before  his  accession  to  the  Austrian 
Throne.  Like  some  of  his  predecessors,  and  like  Francis 
Joseph,  at  least,  among  his  successors,  Joseph  II.  was  pene- 
trated by  a  sense  of  duty  towards  his  subjects.  '  In  regard 
to  the  duties  and  pleasures  of  the  Sovereign  he  wrote  in  his 
quaint  French :  "  Surtout  que  sa  maxime  inviolable  soit 
toujours  que  son  individu  et  son  bonheur  et  vrai  plaisir  ne 
peut  pas  etre  se'pare'  du  bien  de  toute  la  monarchic " ;  and 
again,  with  reference  to  the  necessity  of  allowing  a  certain 
liberty  of  movement  and  conduct,  especially  to  strangers  : 
"  Je  crois  que  dans  tout  ce  qui  s'appelle  bagatelles  ou  choses 
de  propre  gout,  il  faut  la  libert^  pleniere  aux  hommes,  surtout 
exigeant  que  dans  toutes  les  affaires  concernantes  r£tat>  fon 
se  sonmette  aveuglement  et  voie  du  meme  point  de  vue  tout  ce 
que  le  souverain  decide?  Had  he  lived  he  might  have  given 
the  Monarchy  a  lasting  administrative  framework  and  a 
definite  unitary  form.  Tragic  failure  though  his  reign  must 
be  deemed,  it  served  to  illustrate,  while  it  lasted,  the  driving 
power  of  the  Hapsburg  Crown  and  to  prove  the  thesis,  which 
the  reign  of  Francis  Joseph  has  amply  demonstrated,  that 
notwithstanding  mistakes  and  mishaps  such  as  would  dis- 
credit any  uncrowned  administrator  or  statesman,  the  head 
of  the  Hapsburg  dynasty  possesses,  in  virtue  of  his  functions 
and  position,  an  almost  inexhaustible  influence  and  invulner- 
able prestige. 

In  an  epoch  when  democratic  control  is  generally  con- 
sidered the  main  guarantee  of  political  welfare,  the  power 
retained  by  the  Austrian  Crown  may  well  seem  anachronistic, 

1  Arneth,  Maria  Theresia  und Joseph  II. ,  Band  iii.,  pp.  335-361. 


8  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

but,  if  "  Austria "  is  to  be  comprehended,  current  political 
notions  must  be  set  aside  and  the  special  Austrian  facts 
judged  on  their  merits  without  prepossession.  "  Austria  is 
just  Austria,  a  neutralization  of  various  elements  by  and 
through  the  dynasty  and  the  power  of  interests,"  wrote 
Krones  in  the  conclusion  to  his  monumental  Austrian  His- 
tory,1 meaning  by  "  Austria "  the  whole  Monarchy.  The 
policy  divide  et  impera  is  the  active  form  of  this  "neutraliza- 
tion," and  is  facilitated  by  the  natural  divisions  between  the 
Hapsburg  peoples,  divisions  that  in  themselves  tend  to 
prevent  a  serious  coalition  against  the  Crown.  If  one  race 
possesses  or  acquires  predominance,  the  Monarch  acquiesces 
in  it  as  long  as  it  appears  to  serve  the  dynastic  purpose,  but 
throws  his  whole  weight  against  it  when  it  threatens  to 
become  overbearing.  Hapsburg  policy  is  exalted  opportunism 
in  the  pursuit  of  an  unchanging  dynastic  idea.  No  influence, 
be  it  that  of  a  statesman,  a  party,  or  a  race,  is  ever  suffered 
long  to  prevail  over  the  influence  of  the  Crown.  Hence 
perhaps  the  Hapsburg  reputation  for  ingratitude,  a  reputa- 
tion well  earned  according  to  normal  standards,  but  one 
which  must  strike  the  Hapsburgs  themselves  as  singularly 
unjust.  Why  should  the  Hapsburgs  be  grateful  ?  Their 
statesmen,  their  officials  are  their  servants,  whose  duty  it  is 
to  obey,  to  execute  orders,  to  offer  advice,  and  to  disappear 
when  their  period  of  usefulness  is  over.  Is  it  not  enough 
that  they  should  have  been  allowed  to  collaborate  in  the 
fulfilment  of  the  great  dynastic  purpose  ?  The  Emperor 
Francis,  to  whom  a  man  was  once  recommended  as  a  patriot, 
remarked,  "  They  call  him  a  patriot  for  Austria,  but  is  he 
also  a  patriot  for  Me  ? "  Among  the  scores  of  ministers 
and  statesmen  who  have  served  Francis  Joseph,  few  retired 
without  feeling  that  they  had  been  mere  pawns  in  a  dynastic 
game  of  which  they  might  guess  the  rules  but  could  not 
control  the  moves.  Titles  and  decorations  were  lavished 
upon  them  while  in  office  ;  a  supreme  honour  sometimes 
bestowed  with  gracious  words  on  their  dismissal  or  retirement, 

1   Geschichtc  Oesterreichs,  Band  iv.  p.  658. 


THE  MONARCH  AND  THE  MONARCHY   9 

but,  after  retirement,  they  disappeared  into  the  twilight 
reserved  for  pensioned  officials  and  were  heard  of  no  more, 
unless  at  some  moment  of  temporary  embarrassment  the 
Monarch  beckoned  them  again  for  a  brief  space  into  the 
sunshine  of  his  service.  Some  vanished  as  though  by  magic 
in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye.  The  wisest,  seeing  their  hour 
to  be  at  hand  and  estimating  aright  the  value  of  the 
Monarch's  flattering  assurances,  forestalled  dismissal  by 
insisting  that  their  retirement  would  ease  the  position  of 
the  Crown.  Such  a  one  was  Count  Goiuchowski,  Minister 
of  the  Imperial  and  Royal  Household  and  for  Foreign 
Affairs  from  1895  to  1906.  Taught  perhaps  by  the  experi- 
ence of  his  father  who,  in  1861,  found  his  resignation 
awaiting  signature  on  his  desk,  Count  Gotuchowski  the 
younger  doffed  his  high  office  with  grace  and  dignity. 
Others,  vainer  or  less  circumspect,  fared  worse.  The  tragic 
fate  of  heroes  like  Benedek  belongs  to  a  special  category, 
but  the  experience  of  Austrian  Premiers  like  Badeni  and 
Koerber,  who  were  abruptly  dismissed  while  believing  them- 
selves secure  and  indispensable  ;  or  of  Hungarian  Premiers 
like  Banffy  and  Szell,  whose  successors  were  designated 
while  they  themselves  looked  forward  to  a  long  lease  of 
power  ;  of  hommes  a  toutfaire  like  sundry  Croatian  Bans  who 
had  covered  themselves  with  shame  in  the  service  of  the 
Crown  ;  nay,  even  of  Andrassy  the  Elder  who,  contrary  to  his 
expectation,  was  never  recalled  to  office,  might  be  paralleled 
again  and  again  from  the  records  of  Francis  Joseph's  dealings 
with  his  political  agents  and  advisers.  Little  better  was  the 
treatment  of  those  who  ventured  to  cross  the  Monarch's  will 
or  to  protest,  albeit  mutely,  against  his  action.  Beust,  the 
only  Austrian  Imperial  Chancellor,  found  disgrace  to  be  the 
price  of  his  triumph  over  Hohenwart,  who  had  prepared  for 
the  Emperor's  Coronation  as  King  of  Bohemia  at  Prague. 
A  gifted  and  experienced  Austrian  nobleman  who  resigned 
the  Premiership  on  finding  that  declarations  he  had  been 
authorized  to  make  to  the  Chamber  had  subsequently  been 
nullified  without  his  knowledge  by  a  clandestine  arrangement 


io  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

between  the  Crown  and  Hungary,  discovered  that  an  in- 
tangible but  insuperable  obstacle  ever  afterwards  precluded 
his  appointment  to  any  position  higher  than  the  governorship 
of  a  distant  province.  In  the  Hapsburg  Monarchy  public 
servants  must  ever  be  ready  to  subordinate  their  conceptions 
of  patriotism  and  of  political  dignity  to  the  exigencies  of  the 
dynastic  patriotism  represented  by  the  will  of  the  Crown. 
They  must  be  "  patriots  for  Me." 

As  with  individuals  so  with  parties  and  peoples.  The 
Germans  of  Austria  who,  from  1867  onwards,  formed  the 
main  Austrian  pillar  of  the  Dual  System,  lost  favour  and 
were  crushed  in  a  general  election  as  soon  as  they  revolted 
in  1878—79  against  the  occupation  of  Bosnia-Herzegovina 
and  the  increase  of  the  army  which  the  Monarch  held  to  be 
indispensable.  Thereafter  they  wandered  for  thirty  years  in 
the  wilderness  of  Imperial  disfavour,  seeing  the  influence  of 
the  Crown  employed  to  develop  their  Slav  rivals,  and  were 
finally  obliged  in  1906  to  accept  against  their  will  the 
Universal  Suffrage  Bill  that  placed  them  for  ever  in  the 
position  of  a  parliamentary  minority.  Against  universal 
suffrage  they  struggled  indeed  for  a  while,  murmuring 
threats  of  obstruction,  until  at  the  last  moment  their  leaders 
were  summoned  to  the  Emperor's  presence  and  told  that  the 
bill  must  be  passed.  And  passed  it  was.  The  Annexation 
of  Bosnia- Herzegovina  in  1908  gave  them  at  last  an  oppor- 
tunity to  repair  their  error  of  1878—79.  They  supported 
the  Annexation  and  voted  unhesitatingly  the  expenditure  it 
entailed.  Their  reward  was  Imperial  favour.  Similarly,  the 
incipient  opposition  of  the  Czechs  and  of  some  other  Austrian 
Slavs  to  the  Annexation  was  checked  by  the  fear  of  incurring 
the  same  displeasure  with  which  the  Germans  had  been 
visited  after  the  occupation  of  Bosnia-Herzegovina — a  dis- 
pleasure which  the  Slavs,  nevertheless,  did  not  entirely 
escape. 

Nor  is  this  power  of  the  Crown  confined  to  Austria. 
The  Coalition  of  groups  and  parties  that  obtained  the 
majority  in  the  Hungarian  general  election  of  January  1905 


THE  MONARCH  AND  THE  MONARCHY   n 

but  declined  to  take  office  unless  the  Monarch  should 
acquiesce  in  a  curtailment  of  his  constitutional  military 
prerogatives,  was,  after  fifteen  months'  resistance,  coerced  by 
the  Crown  into  capitulation.  The  chief  outward  means  of 
coercion  was  the  threat  that  the  Crown  would  break  the 
power  of  the  Magyar  oligarchy  by  substituting,  if  necessary 
through  a  coup  d'ttat,  universal  suffrage  for  the  narrow  and 
tortuous  Hungarian  franchise  ;  but  the  most  effective  episode 
in  the  conflict  was  the  action  of  the  Crown  in  summoning, 
on  September  23,  1905,  the  recalcitrant  Coalition  Leaders 
ad  audiendum  verbum  regium.  In  this  "  audience,"  which 
lasted  five  minutes,  the  Magyar  leaders  were  treated  as 
schoolboys  by  an  irate  and  masterful  dominie,  treatment 
that,  despite  their  subsequent  expostulations,  went  far  to 
convince  them  that  by  continuing  to  challenge  the  Monarch's 
authority  they  would  be  embarking  upon  a  struggle  in  which 
the  Constitution  and  welfare  of  Hungary  might  be  irre- 
mediably compromised.  After  the  dissolution  of  Parliament 
manu  militari  in  February  1 906,  they  yielded,  but  not  before 
their  conduct  had  brought  into  prominence  the  important 
truth  that,  even  in  Hungary,  the  Crown  is  not  a  mere 
instrument  for  the  ratification  of  parliamentary  decisions,  but 
is  a  legislative  and  governing  factor  equal,  if  not  superior, 
in  weight  to  the  national  representation.  The  conflict  of 
1905-6 — the  first  serious  trial  of  strength  between  the  Crown 
and  the  Magyars  since  the  Dual  Settlement  of  1867 — raised, 
moreover,  in  an  acute  form  the  question  of  the  permanence 
of  the  Dual  System  itself. 

The  importance  of  the  Dual  System  lies  less  in  the 
details  of  the  Constitutional  Settlement  (variously  termed 
"Compromise"  or  AusgleicJi)  of  1867  than  in  the  circum- 
stances from  which  it  sprang.  The  principle  of  Dualism, 
that  is,  the  union  of  the  Lands  of  the  Hungarian  Crown  with 
the  Hereditary  Austrian  Lands  under  a  joint  Hapsburg 
Ruler,  is  at  least  as  old  as  the  Hungarian  Pragmatic  Sanction 
of  1722—23;  but  the  peculiar  significance  of  the  1867 


12  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

Settlement  can  only  be  appreciated  in  the  light  of  the  events 
that  preceded  it  and  the  consequences  it  has  entailed  for  the 
dynasty  and  the  Monarchy.  It  marked  an  important  phase 
of  the  process  of  transformation  that  began  when  Francis  II., 
foreseeing  the  end  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  and  anxious 
to  preserve  Imperial  rank  for  himself  and  his  heirs,  assumed 
in  1804  the  title  of  Emperor  of  Austria.  That  title  meant 
"  Emperor  of  all  Lands  of  the  House  of  Austria "  and 
not  merely  of  Austria  proper.  It  implied  the  develop- 
ment of  a  specifically  "  Austrian "  policy  in  the  House  of 
Hapsburg,  whose  attention  had  until  then  been  chiefly 
absorbed  by  the  retention  and  maintenance  of  the  Roman- 
German  Imperial  dignity.  For  centuries  the  Hapsburgs 
had  sacrificed  the  strength  of  Austria  to  the  Roman-German 
Imperial  dream.  From  Ferdinand  I.  to  Charles  VI.  their 
aim  had  been  to  exercise  universal  sway.  Maria  Theresa, 
Joseph  II.,  and  Leopold  recognized  the  chimerical  nature  of 
the  dream,  but  still  struggled  for  undisputed  hegemony  in 
Germany.  Not  until  the  defeat  of  Sadowa  in  1866,  nor,  in 
reality,  until  the  foundation  of  the  new  German  Empire  at 
Versailles  in  January  1871,  did  the  Hapsburgs  give  up  their 
German  ambitions  and  turn  their  eyes  resolutely  to  their  own 
realms.  Though  begotten  and  conceived  in  1866  and  born 
in  1 867,  the  Austro-Hungarian  Monarchy,  as  a  self-contained 
individuality  among  States,  acquired  a  definite  conscious 
existence  only  after  German  victories  in  France  had  taught 
the  Hapsburgs  that  the  struggle  for  mastery  in  Germany  had 
been  irrevocably  decided  against  them.  The  fall  in  1871  of 
Beust,  the  Bismarck-hating  Saxon  statesman  who,  in  woful 
ignorance  of  Austrian  affairs,  had  negotiated  for  Austria  in 
1866—67  the  Dual  Settlement  with  Hungary  as  a  prelude 
to  revenge  upon  Prussia,  symbolized  the  fall  of  the  old 
Hapsburg  policy.  Until  then  the  Hapsburgs  had  looked 
abroad  ;  Austria  had  been  for  them  merely  the  hereditary 
stronghold  from  which  their  influence  radiated.  If  ever  they 
looked  to  their  home  Lands  it  was  in  order  to  develop  or 
accumulate  resources  for  the  German  struggle.  Hence, 


THE  MONARCH  AND  THE  MONARCHY   13 

largely,  the  resistance  of  the  Bohemian  and  Magyar  nations 
to  union  with  Austria.  Such  union  seemed  tantamount  to 
absorption  in  the  Empire  of  Germany  and  to  servitude  to 
the  Crown  of  Charlemagne.  Had  the  Hapsburgs  limited 
their  ambition  to  the  creation  of  a  unified  Austrian  State, 
they  would  doubtless  have  succeeded.  Their  strength, 
insufficient  for  the  German  Imperial  task,  would  have 
availed  for  the  humbler  but  more  essential  work  of  welding 
Hungary,  Bohemia,  and  the  "  hereditary  dominions "  into 
one  solid  block.  But  they  perceived  too  late  the  true 
nature  of  their  task,  and,  when  they  at  last  addressed  them- 
selves to  it,  found  that  their  chance  of  success  had  been, 
perhaps  irretrievably,  compromised  by  engagements  they 
had  contracted  towards  Hungary  in  a  last  vain  hope  of 
reversing  the  verdict  of  history. 

It  is  essential  to  comprehension  of  the  Dual  System  that 
the  Settlement  of  1867  should  not  be  regarded  as  an  agree- 
ment calmly  concluded  by  two  contracting  parties  after 
mature  consideration  of  the  internal  issues  it  was  to  regulate, 
but  rather  as  a  snap  decision  hurriedly  taken  for  dynastic 
reasons  under  pressure  of  events  abroad.  The  Emperor 
Francis  Joseph  had,  on  his  accession  in  December  1848, 
found  the  fundamental  Dualism  established  by  the  Hungarian 
Pragmatic  Sanction  of  1722-23 — which  stipulated  the  succes- 
sion of  a  single  heir,  male  or  eventually  female,  to  all  the 
lands  of  the  Dynasty,  and  the  exercise  of  inseparable  and 
indivisible  sway  over  Austria  and  Hungary  alike  by  the 
reigning  Head  of  the  Imperial  House — seriously  com- 
promised as  a  result  of  the  ratification  of  the  Hungarian 
Laws  of  April  1848  by  his  predecessor,  the  feeble-minded 
Ferdinand.  The  Hungarian  Law  III.  of  1848  on  the 
formation  of  a  responsible  Hungarian  ministry  was  to  all 
intents  and  purposes  a  separatist  statute.  While  providing 
vaguely  for  the  "  maintenance  of  the  unity  of  the  Crown  and  of 
the  association  of  the  Empire,"  and  stipulating  that  one  of 
the  ministers  must  be  "  constantly  about  the  Person  of  His 
Majesty  in  order  to  exercise  influence  upon  all  matters 


i4  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

concerning  the  Fatherland  (Hungary)  and  the  Hereditary 
Provinces  (Austria)  jointly,"  it  only  limited,  in  practice,  the 
independence  of  Hungary  by  failing  to  enumerate  a  Ministry 
for  Foreign  Affairs  among  the  Hungarian  Departments  of 
State.  The  separatist  character  of  this  and  other  Hungarian 
Statutes  which  were  sanctioned  by  the  Emperor  Ferdinand 
on  April  11,  1848,  was  enhanced  by  the  promulgation,  a 
fortnight  later  (April  25),  of  a  Constitution  for  the  Austrian 
Empire  alone  without  other  provision  for  maintenance  of 
the  union  with  Hungary  than  a  reference  in  the  preamble 
to  the  union  of  the  Kingdoms  belonging  for  centuries  to 
the  Monarchy.  Though  the  sanction  given  to  the  Hungarian 
Statutes  was  subsequently  withdrawn,  and  the  Austrian  Con- 
stitution of  April  25,  1848  replaced  by  the  Unitary  Con- 
stitution of  March  1849  f°r  the  whole  Monarchy,  the  weak- 
ness of  Ferdinand  had  given  to  the  Magyars  an  undeniably 
legal  basis  for  their  policy  of  independence. 

Francis  Joseph  therefore  took  over  his  inheritance  under 
singularly  difficult  conditions,  juridical  and  military ;  and 
though  the  reconquest  of  Hungary  by  the  Imperial  Austrian 
and  Russian  forces  after  the  dethronement  of  Francis  Joseph 
by  the  Hungarian  Diet  in  1849  ma7  be  held  to  have 
destroyed  the  validity  of  anterior  arrangements,  the  Magyars, 
or,  at  least,  the  "  1848  and  Independence  Party,"  have 
always  invoked  the  Laws  of  1848  as  an  integral  portion  of 
the  Hungarian  Constitution.  Austrian  authorities  like  Pro- 
fessor Tezner  maintain,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  fatal 
blunder  of  Francis  Joseph  and  his  advisers  was  the  destruc- 
tion, by  the  Cabinet  Order  and  the  Imperial  Rescripts  of 
August  1851,  of  the  Unitary  Constitution  of  March  1849, 
which,  they  believe,  the  Magyars  could  in  time  have  been 
induced  or  compelled  to  accept.  In  any  case  the  destruc- 
tion of  this  Constitution  under  the  influence  of  the  Ultra- 
Conservatives,  who,  like  Schwarzenberg,  believed  absolutism 
to  be  the  "  natural  Constitution  of  the  Monarchy,"  left  the 
Magyars  no  choice.  Under  the  oppressive  "  System,"  there- 
after organized  with  undeniable  technical  skill  but  political 


THE  MONARCH  AND  THE  MONARCHY   15 

short-sightedness  by  Alexander  Bach,  no  course  was  open  to 
them  but  that  of  passive  resistance.  Bach's  "  System,"  which 
was  maintained  with  pitiless  rigour  until  1859,  when  it  and  its 
author  were  discredited  by  the  defeats  of  Magenta  and  Solferino, 
destroyed  all  chance  of  bringing  the  Magyars  to  a  unitary 
conception  of  their  position  in  the  Monarchy.  Eminent 
foreign  students  like  Professor  Louis  Eisenmann,  whose 
work  Le  Compromis  Austro-Hongrois^  is  a  monument  of 
painstaking  research,  incline,  indeed,  to  the  belief  that 
towards  the  end  of  1860  the  Magyar  leaders  would  have 
been  disposed  to  accept  the  principle  laid  down  in  the 
Austrian  Federal  Constitution,  or  "  October  Diploma,"  of 
that  year — the  principle  that  Hungary,  while  enjoying 
autonomy,  should  be  represented  in  a  Central  Imperial 
Legislative  Council  or  Reichsrath — had  not  Schmerling  and 
other  German  advisers  of  the  Crown  induced  the  Emperor, 
on  February  26,  1861,  to  substitute  for  the  Federalist 
"  Diploma "  a  Centralist  Germanizing  "  Patent "  of  Con- 
stitutional government  by  which  Hungary  was  again  reduced 
to  the  status  of  an  Austrian  Province.  Discussion  of  "  what 
might  have  been  "  had  Francis  Joseph  and  his  Councillors 
been  wiser  is  now  a  merely  academic  exercise.  The  indis- 
putable fact  is  that  the  Constitutional  experiments  of  Francis 
Joseph's  reign  after  the  loss  of  Lombardy  and  the  collapse 
of  the  Bach  "  System "  were  not  undertaken  with  a  single 
eye  to  the  good  government  and  welfare  of  the  Monarchy, 
but  were  intended  chiefly  to  capture  Austrian  Liberal  and 
Magyar  support  for  the  dynastic  policy  of  overcoming 
Prussia  in  the  struggle  for  mastery  in  Germany.  Deak,  one 
of  the  wisest  Magyar  statesmen  of  all  time,  to  whom  the 
Emperor  made  flattering  advances  in  1865,  resolutely 
declined  to  strengthen  the  hands  of  the  dynasty  for  a 
contest  in  which  he  thought  it  certain  to  be  worsted,  and 
from  which,  should  it  perchance  emerge  victorious,  he 
expected  it  to  return  with  enhanced  prestige  again  to 
throttle  Magyar  liberty.  He  presented  to  the  Crown  a 

1  Paris,  1904,  Societe  de  Librairie  et  d'Edition. 


16  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

memorandum  which  a  special  committee  of  Magyar 
politicians  had  endorsed  but  which  the  Emperor  found 
unacceptable.  Francis  Joseph  therefore  broke  with  Deak 
and  drifted,  without  Hungarian  support  or  goodwill,  into 
the  final  tussle  with  Prussia.  But  after  Sadowa  he  hastened 
to  renew  relations  with  Deak,  summoned  him  secretly  to 
Vienna  and  asked  him  for  a  statement  of  Hungarian  terms. 
Deak,  who,  like  most  Magyars,  knew  how  to  combine 
business-like  shrewdness  with  a  noble  gesture,  replied  that, 
notwithstanding  Sadowa,  Hungary  demanded  nothing  more 
than  before.  Touched  by  such  magnanimity  and  too  eager 
to  redeem  his  defeat  to  haggle  over  terms  that  would  bring 
him  Hungarian  support  in  the  intended  war  of  revenge, 
Francis  Joseph  accepted  Deak's  conditions  without  perceiv- 
ing that  what  the  Magyar  leader  had  demanded  in  1865  as 
a  maximum,  subject  to  reduction  by  negotiation,  had  become 
a  minimum  in  1866.  Francis  Joseph  may,  indeed,  have 
accepted  the  Hungarian  terms  with  a  mental  reservation 
that,  when  Prussia  should  have  been  overthrown,  the  inner 
constitution  of  the  Monarchy  would  once  more  be  subject  to 
revision  ;  or  he  may  have  lent  too  ready  an  ear  to  Beust, 
who  embodied  the  policy  of  revenge  and,  in  preparing  it, 
cared  little  whether  the  internal  unity  of  the  Monarchy 
were  undermined  by  over-generosity  towards  the  Magyars. 
Even  Belcredi,  the  Austrian  Premier,  who  had  originally 
shown  indifference  towards  the  negotiations  with  the  Magyars, 
perceived  the  dangers  to  which  unity  was  being  exposed, 
and  attempted  in  vain  at  the  twelfth  hour  to  provide  a  safe- 
guard in  the  form  of  a  special  Reichsrath  for  the  whole 
Monarchy.  But  the  Emperor  was  then,  as  on  some 
subsequent  occasions,  seized  by  a  fit  of  feverish  impatience 
and  insisted  upon  a  rapid  settlement.  Better  a  bad  settle- 
ment than  none,  seems  to  have  been  his  feeling  ;  and  Beust, 
who  knew  how  seriously  the  strength  of  the  Monarchy  had 
been  sapped  by  Magyar  resistance  since  1848,  was  equally 
eager  to  conclude.  As  long  as  military  and  diplomatic 
unity  were  saved,  the  rest,  he  thought,  would  matter  little 


THE  MONARCH  AND  THE  MONARCHY   17 

pending  the  great  squaring  of  accounts  with  Prussia.  But 
Bismarck,  whose  military  triumph  over  Austria  enabled  the 
Magyars  to  make  so  good  a  bargain,  came  once  more  to 
their  aid.  The  alliance  which  Beust  endeavoured  to  form  in 
1869  with  France  and  Italy  against  Prussia  was  thwarted 
by  the  attitude  of  Russia,  whose  goodwill  Bismarck  had 
assiduously  cultivated  ;  and,  before  other  schemes  could  be 
laid,  the  German  victories  over  France  in  1870—71  saved 
the  Dual  Settlement  by  relegating  the  Austrian  policy  of 
revenge  for  Sadowa  to  the  limbo  of  hopes  unfulfilled. 


THE  DUAL  SYSTEM 

Thus  the  Dual  System  acquired  stability.  Its  main 
features  are  too  well  known  to  require  detailed  explanation. 
It  established  in  Hungary  and  Austria  responsible  Ministries, 
between  which  stand  three  Joint  Departments  of  State,  the 
War  Office,  the  Foreign  Office,  and  the  Joint  Ministry  of 
Finance.  The  heads  of  Joint  Departments  are  responsible 
to  neither  the  Austrian  nor  the  Hungarian  Parliament,  but 
only  to  Delegations  consisting  of  sixty  members  chosen  from 
each  Parliament  to  discuss  affairs  and  sanction  estimates 
common  to  both  States.  The  economic  relations  of  the  two 
States  are  regulated  by  a  Customs  and  Trade  Alliance  or 
Economic  Settlement,  renewable  every  ten  years  and  subject 
to  the  proviso  that,  as  the  Pragmatic  Sanction  does  not  apply 
to  commercial  affairs,  Hungary  is  entitled  to  regulate  her  own 
commercial  interests  by  special  tariffs  in  case  the  Customs  and 
Trade  Alliance  should  lapse.  The  Delegations  from  the  Aus- 
trian and  the  Hungarian  Parliaments  are  convoked  annually, 
at  Budapest  or  Vienna  by  turns.  They  meet  simultaneously 
in  the  same  city,  but  sit  separately  and  communicate  decisions 
to  each  other  in  writing,  a  joint  sitting  being  held  only  in 
case  of  disagreement,  for  the  purpose  of  taking  a  joint  vote 
without  debate.  Grave  discrepancies  exist  between  the  Hun- 
garian Constitutional  Statute  XII.  of  1867  and  the  parallel 

C 


1 8  THE  HAPSBURG   MONARCHY 

Austrian  Statute  of  December  21,  1876,  which  form  the 
Dual  Settlement.  The  Hungarian  Statute  is  practically 
Deak's  memorandum  of  1865  hurriedly  cast  into  statute 
form.  Its  language  is  involved  and  vague,  its  terminology 
a  fruitful  source  of  dispute.  The  Austrian  Constitutional 
Statute  is  more  precise,  but  is  not  recognized  by  Magyars 
as  possessing,  even  by  implication,  any  validity  in  regard  to 
the  interpretation  of  the  Hungarian  Law.  The  Magyar  con- 
ception of  the  Dual  System  is  that  of  a  constitutional  pact 
between  the  King  of  Hungary  and  the  Magyar  Nation,  to 
which  a  counterpart  was  created  by  the  Monarch  in  his 
capacity  as  Emperor  of  Austria,  who  granted  to  his  Austrian 
subjects  a  Constitution  containing  analogous  though  by 
no  means  identical  provisions.  The  Hungarian  Statute 
stipulates,  however,  the  establishment  of  "  complete  con- 
stitutionalism in  the  other  Lands  and  Provinces  of  His 
Majesty,  because  Hungary  can  only  consent  to  deal  with 
the  Constitutional  Representation  of  those  Lands  in  regard  to 
any  joint  matters  whatsoever,"  and  thus  recognizes  by  impli- 
cation the  Constitution  of  Austria.  Between  the  Hungarian 
Pact  and  its  Austrian  counterpart  the  main  links  are  the 
Joint  Monarch  and  the  Joint  Departments  of  State.  The 
Dual  System  thus  rests  upon  two  parallel  arrangements,  of 
which  the  one  is  a  bilateral  agreement  between  the  Crown 
and  the  Magyar  Nation  as  represented  in  the  Hungarian 
Parliament,  and  the  other  is  a  unilateral  Constitutional 
Statute  promulgated  by  Imperial  authority  in  Austria  and 
accepted  by  the  Austrian  Parliament.  It  presents  itself  as 
a  kind  of  doorway  consisting  of  two  pillars  of  unequal 
strength  with  the  Crown  and  the  Joint  Departments  for  lintel. 
The  decennial  Customs  and  Trade  Alliance  is  almost  the 
only  feature  of  the  Settlement  that  depends  upon  a  direct 
understanding  between  the  Austrian  and  Hungarian  Govern- 
ments as  representing  their  respective  Parliaments.  But  even 
in  regard  to  this,  as  in  regard  to  nearly  every  detail  of  the 
working  of  the  Dual  Settlement,  the  influence  of  the  Monarch 
makes  itself  constantly  felt.  At  moments  of  tension  between 


THE  MONARCH  AND  THE  MONARCHY   19 

the  two  States,  when,  for  instance,  the  question  of  retaining 
the  Austro-Hungarian  State  Bank  as  a  joint  institution  or 
that  of  maintaining  or  dissolving  the  Customs  and  Trade 
Alliance  becomes  acute,  the  Monarch  is  obliged,  both  person- 
ally and  through  his  Joint  ministers,  to  act  as  moderator  and 
umpire,  sometimes  even  as  dictator.  Yet,  thorny  and  difficult 
as  are  these  economic  issues,  they  rarely  acquire  the  same 
degree  of  importance  as  is  attributed  to  questions  affecting 
the  organization  of  the  army  and  the  Monarch's  military 
prerogatives. 

How  fruitful  of  discord  and  misunderstanding  military 
questions  may  become,  can  be  seen  at  a  glance  from  the 
provisions  of  the  Hungarian  Statute  and  from  those  of  its 
Austrian  counterpart  in  regard  to  the  army.  Clause  1 1  of 
the  Hungarian  Statute  says  :  "  In  pursuance  of  the  Con- 
stitutional princely  rights  of  His  Majesty  in  the  sphere  of 
military  affairs,  everything  appertaining  to  the  unitary 
leadership,  command,  and  inner  organization  of  the  whole 
army,  and  thus  also  of  the  Hungarian  Army  as  an  integral 
part  of  the  whole  army,  is  recognized  as  subject  to  His 
Majesty's  disposal."  But  the  next  clause,  1 2,  of  the  same 
Statute  modifies  and  confuses  the  issue  as  follows  :  "  Never- 
theless, on  the  basis  of  the  previous  laws,  the  country 
reserves  to  itself,  both  in  the  spheres  of  legislation  and  of 
government,  the  decision  concerning  the  periodical  renewal 
of  the  Hungarian  Army  and  the  right  of  granting  recruits, 
the  fixing  of  the  conditions  for  such  granting  of  recruits 
and  of  the  period  of  service,  as  also  the  location  and  com- 
missariat arrangements  of  the  troops."  Without  entering 
at  this  juncture  into  the  precise  meaning  of  the  expression 
"Hungarian  Army,"1  since  no  such  army  exists  in  the  ordinary 
sense  of  the  term  (the  Honved  troops  are  not  referred  to  by 
Clause  u),  it  must  be  noted  that  whereas  Clause  II  recog- 
nizes the  "  constitutional  princely  right  of  His  Majesty "  to 
settle  everything  appertaining  to  the  leadership,  command, 
and  inner  organization  of  the  whole  army,  including  the 

i  Cf.  p.  69. 


20  THE   HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

"Hungarian  Army,"  Clause  12  declares  that  "the  Country" 
reserves  its  right  to  lay  down  the  conditions  on  which  it 
grants  recruits,  to  fix  their  period  of  service,  as  well  as  the 
location  and  commissariat  arrangements  of  the  troops.  The 
contradiction,  or,  at  least,  the  confusion,  is  obvious.  Clause 
12  limits,  if  it  does  not  nullify,  the  provisions  of  Clause  1 1. 
In  point  of  fact  the  Hungarian  Chamber,  taking  its  stand  on 
Clause  1 2,  has  repeatedly  refused  to  grant  the  annual  levy  of 
recruits  unless  the  rights  of  the  Crown  under  Clause  1 1  were 
exercised  in  accordance  with  Magyar  wishes.  The  conflict 
of  1903—6  between  the  Crown  and  the  Magyars  turned  on 
this  very  point.  The,  perhaps  wilful,  obscurity  of  the  Hun- 
garian Statute  is  the  more  striking  in  the  light  of  the 
corresponding  Austrian  Statute,  Clause  5  of  which  contains 
the  terse  declaration  : 

"It  appertains  exclusively  to  the  Emperor  to  ordain 
matters  concerning  the  management,  leadership,  and  inner 
organization  of  the  whole  army." 

No  exception  has  ever  been  taken  by  Hungary  to  this 
clear  enactment  of  the  Austrian  Constitution,  which  evidently 
embraces  the  "  Hungarian  Army,"  inasmuch  as  it  is,  by  the 
Hungarian  Clause  n,  an  "integral  part  of  the  whole 
army "  ;  nor  can  it  be  objected  that  the  constitutional  rela- 
tions between  the  Emperor  of  Austria  and  his  subjects  do 
not  concern  Hungary,  inasmuch  as  the  Hungarian  Statute 
expressly  stipulates  that  the  Monarch  shall  establish  com- 
plete Constitutionalism  in  his  "  other  Lands  and  Provinces." 
The  view  of  the  Crown  itself  is  defined  in  the  Rescript  of 
February  20,  1867,  appointing  a  responsible  Hungarian 
Ministry  and  countersigned  by  Andrassy,  as  Premier,  by 
which  Andrassy  was  provisionally  entrusted  with  the  affairs 
of  National  Defence  subject  to  the  "  undiminished  main- 
tenance of  my  Royal  rights  relating  to  the  command  and 
inner  organization  of  the  army."  The  historical  truth  is  that 
the  Monarch  was,  in  1 866,  disposed  to  meet  Hungarian  wishes 
on  all  points  save  those  of  military  and  diplomatic  unity. 
As  long  as  Count  Andrassy  (who,  with  Dedk,  had  been  the 


THE  MONARCH  AND  THE  MONARCHY  21 

chief  Magyar  architect  of  the  Dual  Settlement)  remained  in 
charge  of  its  practical  working  either  as  Hungarian  Premier 
(1867— 71)  or  as  Joint  Foreign  Minister  (i  871— 79),  no  ques- 
tion as  to  its  interpretation  arose.  The  Settlement  was 
observed  according  to  the  spirit  in  which  the  Magyars  had 
concluded  it,  and  not  according  to  the  casuistical  or  perverse 
interpretations  of  its  letter  which  the  juridical  ingenuity  of 
Magyar  separatists  subsequently  devised.  But,  when  Andrassy 
had  retired  from  office  and  Deak's  voice  was  hushed,  the 
foundations  of  the  Settlement  began  to  be  exposed  in  Hun- 
gary and  in  Austria  to  attacks  that  have  progressively 
undermined  its  stability. 

No  greater  error  can  be  made  in  regard  to  the  affairs  of 
the  Hapsburg  Monarchy  than  to  conceive  any  of  its  elements 
or  factors,  institutions  or  Settlements,  as  entirely  known  quan- 
tities, or  as  "  fixed  poles  in  the  flight  of  phenomena."  If 
there  be  an  exception  to  this  rule,  it  may  perhaps  be  found 
in  the  Pragmatic  Sanction  with  its  provision  for  the  indivisi- 
bility of  the  Hapsburg  Lands  under  one  and  the  same  Ruler, 
though,  as  the  Hungarian  Revolution  of  1 848  showed,  the 
Pragmatic  Sanction  itself  has  not  always  been  respected. 
The  dynasty  is,  in  theory,  a  constant  factor,  but  varies  in 
practice  according  to  the  individual  character  of  its  head, 
and  even,  as  may  be  seen  from  the  vicissitudes  of  Francis 
Joseph's  long  reign,  according  to  the  circumstances  and  in- 
fluences to  which  its  head  may  at  various  times  be  exposed. 
The  Dual  System  is,  by  its  very  nature  and  by  its  vice 
d'origine,  an  oscillating,  fluctuating  structure,  singularly  open 
to  attack.  It  does  not  and  cannot  correspond  to  the  per- 
manent interests  of  the  dynasty,  nor  to  those  of  the  non- 
Magyar  and  non-German  Hapsburg  peoples.  The  Emperor 
Francis  Joseph  seems  instinctively  to  have  perceived  this 
truth  as  soon  as  Beust's  policy  of  revenge  upon  Prussia  was 
seen  to  be  impracticable.  Was  it  accident  or  design  that 
made  him  hold  out,  in  his  Rescripts  to  the  Bohemian  Diet 
of  August  30  and  September  26,  1870,  and  September  12, 
1871,  a  definite  prospect  that  a  Federal  Constitution  would 


22  THE  HAPSBURG   MONARCHY 

be  recognized  for  Bohemia  and  be  sanctioned  by  solemn 
oath  on  the  Emperor's  coronation  at  Prague  as  King  of 
Bohemia?  Austrian -German  writers  attribute  these  Re- 
scripts to  the  baleful  influence  of  Hohenwart,  then  Austrian 
Premier,  and  of  his  Slav  and  Clerical  friends ;  but  they  have 
never  frankly  faced  the  question  why,  within  a  few  weeks 
of  the  first  crushing  German  victories  in  France,  Francis 
Joseph  should  have  made  a  deliberate  bid  for  Austrian-Slav 
favour  by  suggesting  the  establishment  in  Bohemia  of  an 
autonomy  that  could  hardly  have  failed  to  entail  Slav  pre- 
dominance in  that  kingdom.  Francis  Joseph  has  often 
appeared  to  change  his  mind,  has  often  yielded  to  circum- 
stances, has  sometimes  seemed  unreliable  to  the  point  of 
fickleness,  but,  underneath  his  changeability,  signs  of  a 
steady  dynastic  purpose  may  be  detected.  Before  1866 
that  purpose  was  German.  As  soon  as  the  victorious  ad- 
vance of  the  German  army  through  the  Vosges  had  con- 
vinced him  that  Hapsburg  policy  must  in  future  seek  its 
centre  of  gravity  in  its  own  realms,  he  seems,  however,  to 
have  understood  that  the  predominance  of  the  German 
element  in  Austria  must  be  neutralized  by  the  development 
of  the  Austrian  Slavs.  This  policy  was  not  compatible 
with  the  Dual  System  as  conceived  by  Andrassy  and  Deak, 
nor  were  the  Rescripts  of  1870—71  to  the  Bohemian  Diet 
compatible  with  the  Austrian  Constitutional  Statute  of 
December  1867.  Indeed,  the  German  Deputies  in  the 
Bohemian  Diet  answered  the  Rescripts  by  urging  that  they 
transgressed  the  Constitution  of  1867,  which  does  not 
recognize  the  competence  of  a  Provincial  Diet  to  settle  the 
relationship  of  that  province  to  the  Empire  as  a  whole. 
The  Rescripts  caused,  however,  such  consternation  in  the 
Dualist  camp  in  Hungary  and  in  the  German  camp  in 
Austria  that  adversaries  like  Andrassy,  then  Hungarian 
Premier,  and  Beust,  the  Imperial  Chancellor,  joined  hands 
and,  with  the  help  of  Bismarck,  compelled  the  Emperor 
to  dismiss  the  Austrian  Premier  Hohenwart,  who  was 
nominally  responsible  for  the  Rescripts,  and  to  inform  the 


THE  MONARCH  AND  THE  MONARCHY  23 

Bohemian  Diet  by  a  further  Rescript,  on  October  30,  1871, 
that,  as  the  Dual  Settlement  of  1867  had  defined  the  com- 
position of  the  two  halves  of  the  Monarchy,  changes  could 
only  be  made  by  agreement  between  the  Austrian  and 
Hungarian  Parliaments  ;  and  that  the  Austrian  Parliament 
or  Reichsrath  was  alone  competent  to  regulate  the  re- 
ciprocal relationships  of  the  kingdoms  and  provinces  repre- 
sented in  it. 

Hohenwart  and  Bohemia  thus  suffered  a  serious  defeat 
for  which  the  Bohemian  Slavs  have  never  quite  forgiven  the 
Emperor.  He,  however,  threw  the  onus  of  the  defeat  on 
to  Beust,  who  was  constrained  to  resign  the  Imperial  Chan- 
cellorship within  a  few  weeks  of  Hohenwart's  dismissal,  and 
saw  himself  replaced,  not,  indeed,  as  Imperial  Chancellor, 
but  as  Minister  of  the  Imperial  Household  and  for  Foreign 
Affairs,  by  Andrassy,  the  rival  he  had  most  feared.  The  "  Im- 
perial Chancellorship  "  disappeared,  perhaps  for  ever.  Even 
Metternich  had  been  merely  "  Chancellor " ;  but  Beust, 
whose  vanity  and  envy  of  Bismarck  knew  no  bounds,  had 
obtained  for  himself  titular  equality  with  Bismarck  by  ac- 
quiring the  style  of  Reichskanzler.  His  record  in  Austrian 
and  Austro-Hungarian  history  is  not  brilliant.  Too  con- 
ceited to  understand  that  in  Austrian  affairs  under  Francis 
Joseph  none  but  "  practised  Austrians "  could  hope  to  work 
with  profit  to  themselves  and  the  dynasty,  he  applied  a 
Saxon  intelligence  to  Austrian  intricacies,  and  eked  out  his 
ignorance  by  self-sufficiency.  In  his  blind  desire  for  revenge 
upon  Bismarck,  he  handed  over  to  the  Magyars  the  keys  of 
the  fortress  of  unity  instead  of  seeking  to  correct  by  circum- 
spection the  impatience  of  his  Imperial  master.  "  Without 
you,"  said  Andrassy  to  him  with  fine  irony,  "we  should 
never  have  made  the  Dual  Settlement " — and  Beust  was 
fatuous  enough  to  take  the  irony  for  a  compliment. 

Andrassy's  term  at  the  Foreign  Office,  1871-79,  was 
the  most  successful  period  under  the  Dual  System.  In 
Hungary  his  prestige  was  great  with  all  parties ;  in  Austria 
his  action  in  helping  to  ward  off  the  blow  struck  at  German 


24  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

predominance  by  the  Hohenwart  Rescripts,  secured  him  the 
enthusiastic  support  of  the  German  Liberal  elements,  whose 
confidence  in  him  was  enhanced  by  the  reflection  that  he,  as 
a  Magyar  and  adversary  both  of  the  Hungarian  Slav  races 
and  of  Russian  Panslavism,  could  be  relied  upon  to  counter- 
act Austrian  Slav  influence  on  the  Crown  and  to  maintain 
cordial  relations  with  the  new  German  Empire.  Andrassy 
believed  that  the  strength  of  the  Dual  System  depended 
upon  Magyar  predominance  in  Hungary  and  the  parallel 
predominance  of  the  German  Liberals  in  Austria.  As  far 
as  Hungary  was  concerned,  Magyar  hegemony  stood  firm. 
The  short-sightedness  of  Alexander  Bach,  whose  reactionary 
bureaucracy  had,  from  1 849  to  1 859,  dragooned  and  oppressed 
the  loyal  non-Magyars  of  Hungary  with  the  same  ruthless 
severity  as  the  rebellious  Magyars  themselves,  had  so  cured  the 
non-Magyars  of  their  affection  for  Austria  that  when,  under 
the  Constitutional  Decree  or  "Patent"  of  February  1861, 
an  Imperial  Parliament  was  convoked  for  the  whole  Mon- 
archy, neither  the  Croatians  nor  any  non-Magyar  race  save 
the  Transylvanian  Rumanes  and  Saxons  could  be  induced 
to  attend  it ;  and  even  the  presence  of  the  Transylvanians 
was  due  rather  to  the  influence  of  the  great  Rumane  Bishop 
Siaguna  and  to  Transylvanian  particularist  feeling  than  to 
any  love  for  "  Vienna."  After  the  reconciliation  between 
the  Magyars  and  the  Crown  in  1867,  the  Magyar  position 
in  Hungary  had  been  further  strengthened  by  the  wise 
moderation  of  Dedk,  his  freedom  from  Magyar  Chauvinism, 
and  his  conviction  that,  while  not  Magyar  by  race,  the  non- 
Magyars  could  be  rendered,  by  equitable  treatment,  loyally 
Hungarian  in  feeling.  In  Austria  the  position  of  the 
German  Liberals  seemed  almost  equally  assured.  The  dis- 
missal of  Hohenwart  had  removed  the  danger  of  a  fresh 
attack  upon  the  Constitution  of  1867,  and,  thanks  to  the 
abstention  of  the  Bohemian  Slavs,  the  German  Constitu- 
tional party  held  almost  undisputed  sway  in  Parliament. 
The  German  Liberal  Auersperg  Cabinet  was  formed  on  the 
basis  of  an  express  agreement  with  the  Emperor  that  he 


THE  MONARCH  AND  THE  MONARCHY  25 

would  follow  a  constitutional  policy  provided  the  German 
majority  should  grant  him  all  the  military  credits  he  might 
demand.  Andrassy  therefore  began  his  work  as  foreign 
minister  under  favourable  conditions,  and  had  reason  to 
hope  that  the  twin  pillars  of  the  Dual  System  would  gain 
rather  than  lose  strength  with  lapse  of  time.  The  power  of 
the  Crown  seemed  to  have  been  fenced  about  with  Con- 
stitutional restrictions,  and  Austria- Hungary  to  be  develop- 
ing into  a  thoroughly  limited  Monarchy.  Free  from 
internal  anxieties,  Andrassy  was  therefore  able  to  pre- 
pare for  the  realization  of  the  Monarch's  fondest  wish 
— that  his  territory  might  be  extended  in  such  manner  as 
to  compensate  the  dynasty  for  the  loss  of  Lombardy  and 
Venetia. 

An  astute  Austrian  Slav  statesman  whose  Privy  Councillor- 
ship  was  more  than  a  decorative  title,  once  declared  that 
the  key  to  the  Hapsburg  heart  lies  in  the  words,  "  More 
acres."  Andrassy  knew  his  Sovereign  well  enough  to 
understand  that  Francis  Joseph's  deepest  desire  must  be 
not  to  go  down  to  posterity  as  a  lessener  of  the  Empire,  and 
not  to  appear  to  deserve  the  malicious  quip  of  his  dethroned 
uncle  Ferdinand,  who  after  Sadowa  and  the  loss  of  Venetia 
remarked  that  it  was  really  unnecessary  to  have  made  him 
abdicate  in  1848,  because  he  also  could  have  managed  to 
lose  battles  and  provinces.  When,  therefore,  the  insurrec- 
tion in  the  Turkish  vilayet  of  Bosnia  and  the  certainty  of 
a  Russo-Turkish  war  offered  Austria-Hungary  a  chance  of 
obtaining  compensation  for  her  neutrality,  Andrassy  and 
Francis  Joseph  secured,  during  a  meeting  with  the  Tzar 
at  Reichstadt  in  1876,  Russian  consent  to  the  eventual 
addition  of  Bosnia- Herzegovina  to  Hapsburg  territory.  The 
revision  of  the  treaty  of  San  Stefano  by  the  Congress  of 
Berlin  brought  Andrassy  a  European  mandate  to  "occupy 
and  administer  "  the  coveted  Turkish  provinces — but  brought 
to  him  also  the  germs  of  Imperial  disfavour  and  to  the 
Germans  of  Austria  the  destruction  of  their  predominance. 
The  Emperor  expected  that,  after  so  much  diplomatic  pre- 


26  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

paration,  the  Berlin  Congress  would  have  sanctioned  the 
annexation  of  the  two  provinces  outright,  and  is  believed 
always  to  have  borne  Andrdssy  a  grudge  for  having  failed 
to  secure  more  than  an  "  occupation."  However  this  may 
be,  the  mandate  to  occupy  Bosnia-Herzegovina  engendered 
a  conflict  between  the  Crown  and  the  German  majority 
in  the  Austrian  Chamber.  Relations  between  them  had 
already  been  strained  by  the  anti- Clerical  policy  of  the 
Auersperg  Cabinet,  whose  Bill  on  Religious  Congregations 
the  Emperor  had  refused  to  sanction.  When  he  demanded 
military  credits  for  the  operations  in  Bosnia-Herzegovina, 
the  German  majority  broke  into  open  revolt  and  opposed 
both  the  credits  and  the  occupation.  The  Auersperg  pact 
with  the  Crown  having  thus  been  broken,  the  Emperor  was 
free  to  visit  his  displeasure  upon  the  Germans,  whom  he 
caused  to  be  crushed  by  official  influence  during  the  general 
election  of  1879.  The  new  Reichsrath  showed  a  majority 
hostile  to  the  Dualist  Constitution  of  December  1867,  but 
not  strong  enough  to  revise  it.  Under  the  leadership  of 
Count  Taaffe,  whom  the  Emperor  then  appointed  Premier 
and  maintained  in  office  for  fourteen  years,  a  majority 
composed  of  Conservative -Clerical  Germans,  Poles,  and 
Bohemian  Slavs  or  Czechs,  proceeded  to  govern  in  accord- 
ance with  the  Imperial  will.  Taaffe,  indeed,  had  no  other 
object  than  to  increase  the  power  and  prestige  of  the 
Emperor,  whose  friend  he  had  been  from  boyhood.  The 
renascence  of  the  Monarch's  personal  influence  in  Austria 
dates  from  1879. 

After  the  destruction  of  the  German  "  Constitutional " 
majority  in  Austria,  it  would  have  been  impossible  for 
Andrassy  long  to  remain  in  office,  even  had  his  position  not 
been  affected  by  the  vicissitudes  of  the  Berlin  Congress  and 
by  the  falsification  of  his  prophecy  that  "  a  band  of  music  " 
would  suffice  for  the  occupation  of  Bosnia -Herzegovina. 
One  pillar  of  the  Dual  System,  as  he  conceived  it,  had  been 
undermined.  His  last  act  before  retiring  was  to  conclude 
with  Bismarck  the  Austro-German  Alliance  of  October  1879 


THE  MONARCH  AND  THE  MONARCHY  27 

against  Russia.1  Whether  he  believed  that  the  Alliance 
would  reinforce  the  position  of  the  Germans  in  Austria 
and  create  an  external  prop  for  the  Dual  System,  or  whether 
he  was  utilized  by  the  Emperor  to  give  Germany  through 
the  Alliance  a  guarantee  of  Austro-Hungarian  co-operation 
in  foreign  policy  while  in  Austria  the  power  of  the  Crown 
was  being  used  to  diminish  German  and  increase  Slav 
influence,  there  are  as  yet  no  adequate  means  of  judging  ; 
but  it  is  very  doubtful  whether  Bismarck,  who  had  joined 
Andrassy  and  Beust  in  1871  in  thwarting  the  Slavophil 
policy  of  Hohenwart,  would  have  tolerated  the  resumption 
of  a  Slavophil  policy  under  Taaffe,  had  not  the  Alliance 
given  Germany  a  pledge  that  the  Dual  Monarchy  would 
not,  in  foreign  politics,  side  with  the  adversaries  of  the 
German  Empire.  In  later  years  Bismarck  professed  himseli 
unable  to  understand  why  Andrassy  should  have  been 
allowed  to  resign,  and  why,  in  a  land  where  statesmen  of 
the  first  rank  are  exceptionally  rare,  he  should  never  have 
been  recalled  to  office.  But  Bismarck,  whose  political 
fortune  was  due  in  great  part  to  the  patience  and  sound 
sense  of  a  Monarch  not  jealous  of  ministerial  greatness, 
knew  too  little  of  the  inner  workings  of  Hapsburg  affairs 
to  comprehend  that  dynastic  interests,  real  or  fancied,  neces- 

1  The  text  of  the  Alliance,  which  was  published  on  February  3,  1888,  at 
Berlin  and  Vienna,  is  as  follows  : — 

Clause  I. — Should,  contrary  to  the  hope  and  against  the  sincere  wish  of  the 
two  high  contracting  parties,  one  of  the  two  Empires  be  attacked  by  Russia,  the 
high  contracting  parties  are  bound  to  stand  by  each  other  with  the  whole  of  the 
armed  forces  of  their  Empires  and,  in  consequence  thereof,  only  to  conclude 
peace  jointly  and  in  agreement. 

Clause  2. — Should  one  of  the  high  contracting  parties  be  attacked  by  another 
Power,  the  other  high  contracting  party  hereby  binds  itself,  not  only  not  to 
stand  by  the  aggressor  of  its  high  ally,  but  to  observe  at  least  an  attitude  of 
benevolent  neutrality  towards  its  high  co-contractor. 

If,  however,  in  such  a  case,  the  attacking  Power  should  be  supported  by 
Russia,  either  in  the  form  of  active  co-operation  or  by  military  measures 
menacing  to  the  party  attacked,  the  obligation  defined  in  Clause  I,  of  reciprocal 
help  with  the  entire  armed  strength,  comes  immediately  into  force  in  this  case 
also,  and  the  war  will  then  also  be  waged  jointly  by  the  two  high  contracting 
parties  until  the  joint  conclusion  of  peace. 

Clause  3,  concerning  the  secrecy  of  the  treaty,  lost  its  validity  on  publica- 
tion. 


28  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

sarily  take  such  precedence  of  all  other  considerations  that 
no  minister  can  long  hold  office  after  his  usefulness  to  the 
dynasty  has,  or  is  deemed  to  have,  ceased. 

THE  DUAL  SYSTEM — THE  SECOND  PHASE 

With  the  fall  of  Andrassy,  the  Dual  System  entered  on 
a  new  phase.  The  fundamental  condition  laid  down  in  the 
Hungarian  Law  XII.  of  1867  that  "complete  constitu- 
tionalism "  should  be  established  in  the  "  other  Lands  and 
Provinces  of  His  Majesty,"  ceased  to  have  practical  value 
after  the  advent  of  Taaffe.  Hungary  was  governed  Con- 
stitutionally by  a  strong-handed  Premier  with  the  help  of  a 
compact  Parliament ;  Austria  was  governed  according  to 
the  will  of  the  Emperor  by  a  Premier  selected  ad  hoc  with 
the  help  of  a  Slav  and  German-Clerical  majority  known  in 
Austrian  political  history  as  the  "  Iron  Ring."  In  reality, 
Hungary  governed  Austria  through  the  Crown.  Hungary 
could  resist  the  Monarch,  Austria  could  not ;  and  the 
decisions  taken  by  the  King  of  Hungary  in  agreement  with 
the  Hungarian  Cabinet  were  enforced  in  Austria  by  the 
Emperor  through  the  Taaffe  Cabinet.  Yet  it  would  be  a 
mistake  to  regard  this  period  as  entirely  favourable  to 
Hungary.  The  Crown  was  gaining  time  and  influence  in 
Austria  against  the  day  when  it  should  become  necessary  to 
resist  Magyar  pretensions.  Bismarck,  in  his  memoirs,  refers 
to  the  "  ungovernableness  "  of  the  Magyar  national  spirit  as 
introducing  an  incalculable  element  into  Austro-Hungarian 
affairs.  The  late  M.  de  Laveleye  made,  a  month  before 
Sadowa  and  nearly  a  year  before  the  Dual  Settlement,  the 
profound  observation  that  "  les  Hongrois  n'apergoivent 
guere  que  ce  qui  est  conforme  a  leurs  d£sirs  ;  pour  ce  qui 
les  contrarie,  ils  sont  aveugles." l  The  Magyars  have  rarely 
practised  the  virtue  of  moderation.  Forgetting  that  the 
Settlement  of  1 867  represented  a  maximum  wrested  from 
the  dynasty  under  stress  of  circumstance,  they  cultivated 

1  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  June  i,  1866. 


THE  MONARCH  AND  THE  MONARCHY  29 

assiduously  a  Magyar  Chauvinist  spirit  of  astonishing 
intensity  ;  and,  under  Koloman  Tisza,  who  held  the  Premier- 
ship of  Hungary  from  1875  to  1890,  governing  for  the 
greater  part  of  that  period  alongside  of  Taaffe,  they  erected 
Chauvinism  into  a  State  policy.  Born  in  1830,  Tisza  took 
no  part  in  the  Revolution  of  1848,  and  led,  during  the  years 
of  repression,  the  life  of  a  country  squire.  He  thus  escaped 
the  sobering  influence  of  exile  that  had  convinced  Andrassy 
of  the  necessity  of  subordinating  Magyar  separatist  aspira- 
tions to  the  exigencies  of  the  position  of  the  Monarchy  as 
a  Great  Power.  Koloman  Tisza  lacked  also  the  eminent 
wisdom  of  Deak,  who  had  been  content  to  strive  for  the 
establishment  of  a  joint  Austro- Hungarian  Government  for 
common  affairs,  and  had  enunciated  a  tolerant  "  Hungarian," 
as  distinguished  from  a  narrowly  Magyar,  policy  towards  the 
non-Magyar  races  that  inhabit  one  half  of  "  Magyarland." l 
Tisza  originally  desired  to  limit  the  tie  between  Hungary 
and  Austria  to  a  "  personal  union,"  that  is,  to  the  link  formed 
by  the  person  of  the  joint  Monarch.  In  the  Committee 
appointed  to  draft  the  reply  to  the  Speech  from  the  Throne 
that  opened  the  Diet  of  1865  he,  with  three  others,  actually 
presented  a  minority  report  in  favour  of  a  merely  "  personal 
union"  ;  and,  after  the  Settlement  in  1867,  he  led  the  anti- 
Dualist  Opposition  against  Andrassy  and  the  Dedk,  or 
Dualist,  Party.  In  1 8 7  5 ,  however,  Tisza  coalesced  with  the 
Deakists  to  form  the  "  Liberal "  Party,  with  whose  support 
he  was  to  govern  Hungary  for  fifteen  years.  Accepting 
first  the  Ministry  of  the  Interior  and,  a  few  months  later, 
the  Premiership,  he  discarded  all  his  principles  save  that  of 
Magyar  Chauvinism,  and,  purchasing  the  favour  of  the 
Crown  by  pliancy  in  regard  to  military  and  foreign  affairs, 
gained  a  free  hand  to  deal  as  he  wished  with  the  non- 
Magyars.  Oblivious  of  his  own  engagements  towards  the 
non- Magyars,  and  careless  of  the  fact  that  they  had  rallied 
to  the  Hungarian  State  in  1867  under  the  benign  influence 

1  The  Magyar  language  contains  no  equivalent  for  "Hungary";  its  only 
word  is  Magyarorszdg,  land  or  country  of  the  Magyars. 


30  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

of  Deak  and  Eotvos,  Tisza  appealed  to  the  passions  of  the 
growing  Chauvinistic  section  of  his  fellow-countrymen  by 
inaugurating  a  policy  of  ruthless  Magyarization.  Thanks  to 
the  influence  thus  obtained,  he  overcame  the  opposition  to 
the  occupation  of  Bosnia-Herzegovina  and  endeared  himself 
to  the  Monarch,  whose  gratitude  found  expression  in  import- 
ant concessions  to  Magyar  sentiment  in  various  military 
questions,  and  ultimately  in  regard  to  the  title  and  style  of 
the  Imperial  House,  the  Joint  army,  and  the  Ministry  for 
Foreign  Affairs. 

The  attitude  frequently  taken  up  by  Francis  Joseph 
towards  the  administrative  oppression  of  various  sections 
of  his  subjects  constitutes  a  hard  psychological  problem. 
While  personally  unselfish,  generous  and  just,  ever  ready  to 
redress  a  private  injury  or  to  alleviate  private  distress, 
Francis  Joseph,  as  a  ruler,  has  often  seemed  callous  to  the 
point  of  cynicism  and  "  constitutional "  to  the  point  of  in- 
justice. Provided  that  a  minister  obtained  for  him  the 
"  necessities  of  the  State "  in  the  form  of  money  and 
recruits,  he  appeared  to  care  little  how  heavily  the  policy  of 
the  minister  might  press  in  other  respects  upon  whole  sections 
of  loyal  subjects.  Indeed,  the  bearing  of  Francis  Joseph 
has  sometimes  resembled  that  of  the  landlord  who  ignores 
the  petty  tyranny  exercised  by  his  estate  agent  and  dis- 
misses the  agent  only  when  revenue  falls  off  or  disturbances 
occur.  Francis  Joseph  has  rarely  borrowed  trouble  or 
insisted  that  the  political  action  of  his  ministers  must 
conform  to  private  ethical  standards. 

Thus,  even  at  the  risk  of  estranging  important  races  like 
the  Rumanes  of  Transylvania,  he  tolerated  the  Magyarizing 
tactics  of  Tisza  and  of  subsequent  Hungarian  Premiers  ; 
and  showed  indifference  towards  the  employment  of  corrup- 
tion and  pressure  as  means  of  government  while  provinces 
like  Croatia  were  being  driven  to  the  verge  of  revolt.  He 
doubtless  thought  in  generations  where  ordinary  folk  think 
in  years  or  decades  ;  and  felt  that  the  power  of  the  Crown 
was  always  in  reserve  to  make  good  the  misdeeds  of 


THE  MONARCH  AND  THE  MONARCHY  31 

unscrupulous  or  incompetent  ministers.  Deep  in  his  mind 
there  has  always  lain  a  semi -fatalistic,  semi -religious  be- 
lief that  all  things  must  ultimately  work  together  for  the 
good  of  the  divinely-appointed  head  of  the  dynasty,  and 
that,  in  meeting  the  necessities  of  the  hour,  the  Monarch's 
path  need  not  diverge  too  widely  from  the  line  of  least 
resistance. 

Of  these  necessities  the  requirements  of  the  army,  as 
the  chief  prop  alike  of  the  dynasty  and  of  its  foreign  policy, 
have  always  been  uppermost  in  his  thoughts.  Professor 
Louis  Eisenmann  shrewdly  observes l  that  the  system  of 
government  adopted  in  Hungary  during  the  fifteen  years 
of  Koloman  Tisza's  Premiership  was  based  in  reality  upon 
an  understanding  between  the  Parliamentary  majority  and 
the  Crown,  analogous  to  the  agreement  concluded  in  Austria 
between  the  Emperor  and  the  German  Liberal  majority 
under  the  Auersperg  Cabinet  The  Crown,  he  adds,  has 
rarely  been  so  powerful  in  Hungary  as  during  the  Tisza 
period,  when  the  Premier,  sure  of  the  majority  he  had  created 
by  official  pressure  and  official  favours,  obtained  from  Parlia- 
ment everything  he  wanted.  But  the  price  paid  for  the 
maintenance  of  so  comfortable  a  system — the  development 
of  Magyar  Chauvinism — proved  presently  to  be  heavier  than 
the  Crown  may  have  anticipated,  unless  indeed  it  foresaw 
that,  in  arousing  non- Magyar  resentment,  Tisza  and  his 
successors  were  weakening  the  Magyar  State  and  placing  in 
the  hands  of  the  dynasty  a  weapon  wherewith  to  coerce  the 
Magyars  whenever  their  demands  should  become  intolerable. 
But  if  Francis  Joseph  was  influenced  by  a  consideration  of 
this  kind,  Tisza,  for  his  part,  adopted  tactics  hardly  less 
astute.  He  maintained  and  nursed  a  Magyar  Nationalist 
Opposition,  whose  resistance  he  used  as  a  corrective  to  the 
arrogance  of  "  Vienna,"  and  whose  clamour  enabled  him  to 
ask  the  Crown  for  concessions  to  "  Magyar  national  feeling." 
Such  concessions  had  repeatedly  to  be  made,  the  most 
notable  being  the  issue  of  Rescripts  to  the  Joint  Foreign 

1  Le  Compromis  Austro-Hongrois ,  p.  585. 


32  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

Minister,  Count  Kalnoky,  in  1889,  ordaining  that  the  Army 
and  Navy  be  styled  "  Imperial  and  Royal "  instead  of  "  Im- 
perial "  or  "  Imperial-Royal."  The  style  "  Imperial-Royal  " 
was  reserved  for  Austria  alone,  the  "  Royal "  referring  to  the 
Emperor's  position  as  King  of  Bohemia,  Dalmatia,  Galicia, 
etc. ;  whereas  the  new  style  "  Imperial  and  Royal  "  referred 
to  the  joint  character  of  the  Monarch  as  Emperor  of  Austria 
and  Apostolic  King  of  Hungary.  True,  a  first  step  towards 
the  titular  differentiation  of  Hungary  from  Austria  had  been 
taken  in  1868,  when,  in  a  Rescript  to  Beust,  the  Emperor 
established  his  title  as  "  Emperor  of  Austria,  King  of 
Bohemia,  etc.,  and  Apostolic  King  of  Hungary,"  and  pre- 
scribed the  use  of  the  name  " Austro-Hungarian  Monarchy" 
or  "Austro-Hungarian  Empire"  for  "the  totality  of  the 
Kingdoms  and  Lands  constitutionally  united  under  My 
sceptre,"  instead  of  the  designation  "  Austrian  Monarchy " 
employed  by  the  Austrian  Constitution  of  December  1867. 
Nevertheless  the  Army  continued,  until  1889,  to  be  styled 
"  Imperial "  or  "  Imperial-Royal."  The  Rescripts  to  Count 
Kalnoky  removed  this  Hungarian  grievance,  but  laid  down 
expressly  that  the  alteration  of  style  could  not  affect  "  the 
unity  and  indivisibility  of  the  Joint  Army  and  Navy  as 
established  in  principle  and  definitely  by  the  Austrian  and 
Hungarian  Laws  of  1867  on  the  basis  of  the  fundamental 
principles  of  the  Pragmatic  Sanction."  Yet  neither  those 
titular  changes  nor  those  made  by  the  Rescript  of  October  4, 
I895,1  to  Kalnoky's  successor,  Gokichowski,  in  which  the 
designation  "  Imperial  and  Royal "  was  extended  to  the 
Ministry  of  the  Imperial  Household  and  for  Foreign  Affairs, 
revealed  so  clearly  the  effect  of  Tisza's  Nationalist  policy  as 
the  Magyar  demand  for  the  substitution  of  Magyar  for  the 
German  language  in  the  "  Hungarian  Army "  ;  that  is  to 
say,  in  the  regiments  of  the  Joint  army  that  are  recruited 
from  Hungary.  This  demand,  which  the  Monarch  resented 

1  It  is  a  curious,  and  perhaps  a  significant  fact  that  none  of  these  Rescripts 
have  ever  been  recognized  by  the  Austrian  Parliament  nor  placed  upon  the 
Austrian  Statute  Book.  Cf.  Bernatzik,  Oesterreichische  Verfassungsgesetze,  p.  16. 


THE  MONARCH  AND  THE  MONARCHY   3? 

*J  \* 

as  an  encroachment  on  his  military  prerogatives  constitu- 
tionally recognized  by  Clause  1 1  of  the  Hungarian  Law 
XII.  of  1867,  and  defined  with  absolute  precision  in  the 
corresponding  Austrian  Statute,1  so  alarmed  the  veteran 
Andrassy  that  he  devoted  his  last  public  utterance  in  the 
House  of  Magnates  to  a  denunciation  of  the  perils  of 
"  national  chauvinism."  Andrassy's  intimate  knowledge  of 
the  Monarch's  conception  of  dynastic  interests  made  him 
certain  that  the  Crown  would  defend  to  the  utmost  its 
military  rights,  and  that  Magyar  attacks  upon  those  rights 
would  lead  to  a  conflict  in  which  Hungary  might  be  worsted. 
Andrassy's  vision  was  prophetic.  Twenty-five  years  later, 
by  a  strange  irony  of  fate,  Koloman  Tisza's  son,  Count 
Stephen  Tisza,  was  overthrown  when  attempting,  as 
Hungarian  Premier,  to  defend  the  military  prerogatives  of 
the  Crown  against  a  chauvinistic  coalition ;  but  after  a 
struggle  of  sixteen  months  the  Coalition  itself  was  vanquished 
and  compelled  to  yield  to  the  Crown  in  order  to  avoid  the 
establishment,  under  Royal  authority,  of  a  measure  of 
universal  suffrage,  which,  by  enfranchising  the  non-Magyar 
races,  would  have  broken  or  severely  curtailed  the  power  of 
the  Magyars. 

While  the  Monarch  thus  showed  himself  alive  to  the 
importance  of  maintaining  dynastic  rights  in  Hungary,  he 
succeeded  in  Austria  in  reducing  the  Germans  to  a  position 
comparatively  commensurate  with  their  numerical  strength. 
The  process  of  reduction  naturally  caused  race  friction,  since 
almost  every  advantage  obtained  by  the  non-Germans  im- 
plied some  loss  to  vested  German  interests  and  to  German 
predominance  in  the  Bureaucracy.  Taaffe,  the  Emperor's 
chief  agent  in  the  execution  of  this  policy,  fell  in  1893  in 
an  attempt  to  fulfil  the  Imperial  wish  that,  as  a  means  of 
curtailing  the  power  of  German  cliques  and  corporations,  a 
certain  section  of  the  Austrian  Chamber  should  be  elected 
by  universal  suffrage.  Three  years  later  Badeni,  a  Pole,  who 
succeeded  Taaffe,  actually  introduced  a  universal  suffrage 

1  Cf.  pp.  19-20. 

D 


34  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

section,  or  Curia,  of  seventy-two  deputies  into  the  Austrian 
system  of  franchise — a  proceeding  which  shows  how  tena- 
ciously the  Emperor,  as  head  of  the  dynasty,  clung  to  the 
idea  of  enfranchising  and  using  the  masses  for  dynastic 
purposes.  But  Badeni,  in  his  eagerness  to  strengthen  the 
Slav  position,  imprudently  issued  ministerial  ordinances  to 
establish  the  administrative  equality  of  the  Czech  language 
with  German  throughout  Bohemia.  Thereupon  the  Germans 
revolted  and  obstructed  all  parliamentary  business  until  the 
language  ordinances  were  withdrawn.  The  Emperor,  yield- 
ing to  the  pressure  of  a  popular  agitation  in  Vienna,  hurriedly 
dismissed  Badeni,  and,  after  German  indignation  had  found 
vent  in  a  pseudo-Protestant,  anti-Hapsburg  movement,  known 
by  its  catchword,  "  Los  von  Rom  !  "  ultimately  sanctioned  the 
withdrawal  of  the  ordinances.  The  rapidity  with  which  the 
Los  von  Rom !  movement  subsided  as  soon  as  its  Pan- 
German,  anti-Hapsburg  character  became  apparent,  and  the 
growth  of  a  loyal  German  "  Christian  Social "  party  under 
Lueger,  speedily  demonstrated  the  power  of  the  dynasty 
even  over  its  German  subjects ;  but  a  not  less  important 
feature  of  the  crisis  was  the  gradual  establishment  of  "  con- 
stitutional absolutism  "  by  the  abuse  or  elastic  use  of  the 
Clause  14,  the  "Emergency  Paragraph"  of  the  1867  Con- 
stitution. 

Unspeakably  tiresome  as  were  the  vicissitudes  of  the 
conflict  arising  out  of  Badeni's  Language  Ordinances,  they 
marked  a  turning-point  in  Austrian  Constitutional  history. 
Under  the  influence  of  parliamentary  obstruction,  carried  on 
by  the  Germans  until  the  ordinances  were  withdrawn  and, 
after  their  withdrawal,  by  the  Slavs  of  Bohemia,  the  Govern- 
ment employed  with  increasing  frequency  the  "  Emergency 
Paragraph  "  for  the  despatch  of  public  business.  Austrian 
Parliamentarism  was  gradually  turned  into  a  system  under 
which,  on  the  one  hand,  the  divergent  interests  of  races, 
groups  and  parties  were  exploited  by  the  Government,  and 
the  necessities  of  the  Government  were,  on  the  other  hand, 


THE  MONARCH  AND  THE  MONARCHY   35 

exploited  by  races,  groups  and  parties  at  the  expense  of 
taxpayers ;  and  the  fact  was  clearly  revealed  that  no 
Austrian  race  or  party  would  hesitate  to  sell  the  Constitution 
at  a  price.  Each  party  in  turn  obstructed  parliamentary 
business  in  order  to  extort  concessions  from  a  government 
composed  mainly  of  officials.  Had  the  Austrian  Constitution 
been  imposed  upon  the  Crown  by  popular  will,  the  position 
of  parliament  might  have  been  stronger,  and  the  respect  of 
political  parties  for  the  integrity  of  the  Constitution  might  have 
been  greater  ;  but  the  Constitution  of  1867,  as  well  as  those 
of  1849,  1860  and  1 86 1,  were  gifts  of  the  Crown  and  were 
felt  to  be  subject  to  withdrawal  or  revision  at  the  Emperor's 
pleasure.  True,  the  Constitution  of  1867  appeared  origin- 
ally to  contain  a  guarantee  of  stability  in  the  clause  of 
the  Hungarian  Statute  XII.  of  1867,  which  stipulated  the 
existence  of  complete  constitutionalism  in  Austria  as  an 
essential  condition  of  the  Dual  Settlement  Had  the 
Magyars  remained  true  to  the  principles  of  the  Settlement, 
this  guarantee  might  have  remained  valid,  but  they,  like  the 
Austrian  parties  themselves,  were  always  ready  to  sell  the 
Austrian  Constitution  at  a  price,  and  to  wink  at  the 
intermittent  revival  of  absolutism  by  the  Austrian  bureau- 
cracy or  by  the  Crown.  Short-sighted,  as  they  frequently 
are,  the  Magyars  imagined  that  the  weakening  of  Austrian 
parliamentarism  would  strengthen  the  influence  of  the 
Hungarian  State  in  the  Monarchy,  and  failed  to  reflect  that 
while  the  Emperor  of  Austria  was  dictating  to  his  Austrian 
subjects  decisions  which  his  immediate  interest  as  King  of 
Hungary  had  led  him  to  adopt,  he  was  at  once  increasing 
the  absolutist  power  of  the  Austrian  Crown  and  reducing 
the  Austrian  Parliament  more  and  more  to  the  position  of  a 
tool  which,  in  case  of  need,  might  be  used  against  Hungary 
herself. 

Had  the  Magyars  been  less  absorbed  in  their  own  affairs 
and  more  careful  of  the  constitutional  liberties  they  affected 
to  prize  not  only  for  themselves  but  also  for  their  Austrian 
fellow-subjects,  they  would  have  kept  careful  watch  against 


36  THE   HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

a  revival  of  absolutism  in  Austria.  Watchfulness  would  have 
been  the  more  necessary  in  that  the  Austrian  Constitution 
of  1867  is  so  framed  as  to  facilitate  an  occasional  return  to 
absolutism. 

The  "  Emergency  Paragraph,"  the  widest  of  the  doors 
through  which  the  return  could  be  made,  runs : — 

"  Should,  at  a  time  when  the  Reichsrath  is  not  sitting, 
urgent  necessity  arise  for  enactments  to  which  the  assent  of 
the  Reichsrath  is  constitutionally  requisite,  these  enactments 
can  be  promulgated  by  Imperial  ordinance  on  the  responsi- 
bility of  the  whole  Cabinet  provided  such  ordinances  aim  at 
effecting  no  change  of  the  Constitutional  Statute  itself,  at 
placing  no  permanent  burden  upon  the  Treasury,  and  con- 
cern no  sale  of  State  property.  Such  ordinances  possess 
provisionally  the  force  of  law  when  they  are  signed  by  all 
the  Ministers  and  are  promulgated  with  express  reference  to 
this  Clause  of  the  Constitution.  Their  legal  validity  lapses 
if  the  government  fails  to  submit  them  for  approval  to  the 
next  Reichsrath  and,  in  the  first  place,  to  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies  within  three  weeks  of  its  meeting  ;  or  if  the 
ordinances  fail  to  receive  the  assent  of  either  of  the  two 
Houses  of  the  Reichsrath.  The  Cabinet  as  a  whole  is 
responsible  for  the  immediate  abrogation  of  such  ordinances 
when  they  have  lost  their  provisional  validity." 

In  theory  this  clause  appears  sufficiently  to  safeguard 
the  rights  of  parliament  and  to  reserve  for  the  popular 
representatives  adequate  retrospective  control  over  Ministerial 
acts,  even  should  a  ministry  arbitrarily  prorogue  or  dissolve 
parliament  in  order  to  enact  by  Imperial  ordinance  measures 
to  which  parliamentary  assent  might  not  have  been  given. 
But,  even  in  theory,  the  clause  presupposes  a  vigilant 
parliament,  jealous  of  its  rights  and  ever  ready  to  punish 
infractions  of  them.  In  practice,  the  Austrian  parliament 
is  neither  vigilant  nor  jealous  of  its  rights,  though  its 
tendency  utterly  to  subordinate  their  defence  to  the  pro- 
motion of  party  or  race  interests  was  not  clearly  revealed 


THE  MONARCH  AND  THE  MONARCHY   37 

until  parliamentary  obstruction  began  in  1897.  Then  the 
Germans,  as  subsequently  the  Bohemian  Slavs  or  Czechs, 
deliberately  sacrificed  a  fundamental  guarantee  of  parliament- 
ary freedom — the  granting  of  supply — in  the  hope  of  com- 
pelling the  government  to  remove  party  grievances.  This 
conduct  was  a  gross  betrayal  of  popular  rights.  Whereas, 
in  Austria,  the  Crown  legislates  and  parliament  ratifies 
the  legislation  by  its  assent,  the  position  is  reversed  in 
regard  to  the  budget  and  the  annual  contingent  of  recruits. 
Here  the  Crown,  through  a  non-parliamentary  Cabinet,  asks 
for  the  annual  supply  of  money  and  men  which  parliament 
grants  or  refuses.  By  directing  obstruction  against  the 
discussion  of  the  Estimates,  the  parties  of  the  Austrian 
parliament  therefore  made  over  to  the  government  the 
protection  of  popular  rights  as  though  they  expected  the 
government  to  be  more  observant  of  constitutional  precept 
and  practice  than  the  representatives  of  the  people  had  been 
— a  government  armed,  moreover,  with  so  formidable  a 
weapon  as  the  Emergency  Paragraph.  In  reality,  Austrian 
parliamentary  obstruction  is  in  the  nature  of  an  indirect 
recognition  of  the  supreme  power  of  the  Monarch  and  a 
tacit  confession  of  the  belief  that,  whatever  individual  parties 
may  do,  the  Emperor  will  carry  on  the  government  and 
look  after  the  main  interests  of  the  State.  Occasionally 
also,  obstruction  acquires  the  significance  of  an  appeal  to 
the  Emperor  on  the  part  of  a  minority  against  the  action  of 
a  parliamentary  majority  composed  of  other  ethnical  elements, 
since  the  composition  of  the  majority  or,  rather,  the  granting 
of  the  concessions  requisite  to  purchase  for  a  Cabinet  the 
support  of  a  majority,  is  largely  subject  to  the  Emperor's 
control. 

Juridically  and  politically  the  use  of  the  Emergency 
Paragraph  to  obtain  supply  at  a  time  when  Parliament 
was  sitting,  but  was  rendered  by  obstruction  incapable  of 
discharging  its  normal  functions,  was  unquestionably  a 
breach  of  the  Constitution.  The  emergency  was  a  pseudo- 
emergency  which  might  have  been  met  by  a  dissolution,  or, 


38  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

as  in  Hungary,  where  there  is  no  analogy  to  the  Austrian 
Clause  14,  by  allowing  the  payment  of  taxes  to  be  merely 
voluntary  until  confusion  in  the  public  administration  should 
compel  parliament  to  do  its  duty.  But  in  Austria  there 
is  little  or  no  innate  constitutional  sense.  Parliament, 
theoretically  armed  with  weighty  powers,  proves  in  practice 
too  weak  to  carry  the  burden  of  its  accoutrement.  The 
Constitution  is  a  respectable  cloak  for  the  nakedness  of 
bureaucratic  and  Imperial  absolutism.  The  Austrian  Chamber 
has  never  revised  or  rejected  an  Imperial  ordinance  issued 
under  the  Emergency  Paragraph.  It  has  never  seriously 
called  a  blameworthy  ministry  to  account  for  abuse  of  its 
powers;  and  when,  under  the  Koerber  Ministry  of  1900— 
1 904,  obstruction  ceased  for  a  time  and  supply  was  normally 
voted,  this  result  was  obtained  not  by  any  revival  of  Con- 
stitutional feeling  on  the  part  of  the  Chamber  of  Deputies, 
but  by  the  announcement  of  an  enormous  programme  of 
railway  and  canal  construction,  estimated  to  cost  some 
^40,000,000  and  costing  in  reality  as  much  again.  All 
the  chief  parties  then  sank  their  differences  for  a  time  in 
order  to  feed  at  the  Government  manger.  Not  even  the 
provision  that  the  Emergency  Paragraph  may  not  be  used 
"  to  place  any  permanent  burden  on  the  Treasury  "  has  been 
respected  in  practice.  Though  no  consolidated  loan  has 
yet  been  contracted  on  the  strength  of  it,  Treasury  Bills 
have  been  issued  by  ministerial  ordinance,  and  advances 
secured  on  current  account  from  private  banks  pending 
subsequent  conversion  into  consolidated  stock  whenever 
Parliament  should  be  driven  or  bribed  into  covering  absolutist 
practice  by  a  fig-leaf  vote.  Nor  have  the  Imperial  Tribunal 
(Reichsgerichf)  and  the  Supreme  Court  of  Administration 
(Oberster  Verwaltungsgerichtshof)  discharged  their  ostensible 
functions  as  the  guardians  of  legality.  They  declined  to 
examine  the  validity  of  the  Imperial  Ordinances  issued 
under  the  Emergency  Paragraph,  and  acquiesced  in  the 
creation  of  precedents  that  allow  any  cabinet  to  bring  about, 
during  a  period  of  parliamentary  obstruction,  a  financial 


THE  MONARCH  AND  THE  MONARCHY   39 

situation  such  as  no  retrospective  rejection  of  Imperial 
Ordinances  by  Parliament  can  remedy.  A  leading  Austrian 
authority  on  Constitutional  Law,  Professor  Tezner,  claims1 
that  it  follows  from  the  decisions  of  these  two  Courts  that 
Austrian  judges  would  be  obliged  to  recognize  as  valid  even 
an  Imperial  Ordinance  that  should  abolish  parliamentary 
control  of  the  Public  Debt  Administration.  Tezner  rightly 
deplores  the  dangers  to  which  the  administration  of  public 
finance  in  Austria  is  thus  exposed,  and  points  out 2  that  it 
would  be  difficult  to  find,  even  in  the  absolutist  epochs  of 
Austrian  history,  a  parallel  for  the  Imperial  Ordinance  of 
July  1 6,  1904,  by  which  suits  pending  before  the  Imperial 
Tribunal  against  the  Treasury,  were  simply  quashed  because 
previous  decisions  of  the  Tribunal  in  similar  cases  had 
rendered  a  condemnation  of  the  Treasury  probable.  Though 
this  denial  of  justice  was  committed  by  Imperial  Ordinance, 
the  absolutist  spirit  from  which  it  proceeded  was  rather  that 
of  the  bureaucracy  than  that  of  the  Monarch.  Between 
these  two  absolutisms  the  difference  is  considerable,  and,  of 
the  two,  Imperial  absolutism  is  the  less  insidious.  The 
Emperor  Francis  Joseph  is  not  unconstitutionally  minded, 
and  prefers  to  work  within  constitutional  forms  as  long  as 
they  serve  the  supreme  interests  of  State  and  dynasty  ;  but 
it  is  too  much  to  expect  him  to  be  over-respectful  of  a 
Parliament  of  his  own  making  when  that  Parliament  shows 
itself  careless  of  its  rights,  and  subordinates  general  issues 
to  local  or  party  considerations. 


THE  POSITION  OF  THE  EMPEROR 

The  influence  of  the  Monarch  is  therefore  paramount  in 
Austrian  constitutional  questions  and  tends  to  prevail  over 
that  of  all  other  constitutional  factors,  not  always  excluding 
that  of  the  Judiciary.  Justice  is  administered  in  his  name, 

1   Oesterreichisches  Staatsrecht :  Der  Kaiser,  p.  47. 
2  Op.  cit.  p.  48. 


40  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

though,  in  the  case  of  ordinary  citizens,  he  is  not  constitu- 
tionally entitled  to  administer  it  in  person.  Judges  are 
appointed  by  him,  and  are  by  the  constitution  declared  to 
be  "  independent."  The  Emperor  as  Emperor  is,  however, 
above  the  law,  and  "  irresponsible "  in  the  sense  that  he  is 
not  accountable  to  any  organ  of  the  State  for  his  Imperial 
acts  and  omissions.  Sedes  regia  a  nemine  judicatur.  As  a 
private  person  he,  like  other  members  of  the  Imperial  and 
Royal  Family,  is  subject  to  the  Office  of  the  Grand  Marshal 
of  the  Court.  He  can  be  prosecuted  before  this  tribunal 
under  the  common  law,  though  courtesy  requires  that  a  suit 
against  him  be  directed  against  his  private  purse.  In  other 
respects  also  his  action  as  a  private  person  is  subject  to 
restrictions.  He  requires,  for  instance,  municipal  permission 
to  erect  a  building  on  his  private  property,  and  that  of  the 
Forestry  Authorities  to  cut  his  private  timber.  His  private 
properties  and  undertakings  are  subject  to  State,  provincial, 
and  municipal  taxation.  On  the  other  hand,  he  possesses 
many  of  the  rights  of  a  private  citizen.  He  is  entitled  to 
vote  in  political  and  provincial  elections,  but  is  not  eligible 
to  any  representative  body  because  not  subject  to  the 
disciplinary  regulations  of  such  bodies.  His  name  stands 
indeed  on  the  electoral  register  of  most  Austrian  provinces 
in  the  class  of  large  landed  proprietors  ;  and  though  not 
personally  eligible  to  a  municipal  council  or  assembly,  his 
place  can  be  taken  by  a  plenipotentiary  representative. 
His  residences,  castles  and  gardens  are  not  his  private 
property,  but  are  registered  as  belonging  to  the  Court 
Exchequer  unless  historical  proof  can  be  adduced  to  show 
that  they  are  the  personal  property  of  the  Monarch  or  of 
some  member  of  the  Imperial  and  Royal  Family.  The 
Austro-Hungarian  Court  is  a  State  institution,  not  merely  a 
personal  appendage  of  the  Monarch,  and  some  of  its 
departments,  notably  the  Chancery  of  the  Imperial  Cabinet 
and  the  Grand  Court  Marshal's  Office,  are  recognized  by 
law.  The  Chancery  of  the  Imperial  Cabinet  is  specially 
provided  for  in  the  Budget  apart  from  the  Civil  List.  These 


THE  MONARCH  AND  THE  MONARCHY  41 

Court  departments  maintain  contact  between  the  Crown 
and  the  various  Departments  of  State,  and  deal  with  the 
reports,  petitions  and  other  documents  addressed  to  the 
Monarch.  Though  nominally  belonging  to  the  Court,  the 
Heads  of  these  departments  therefore  perform  duties  of  great 
political  importance.  The  responsible  ministers  in  the  two 
States  are  supposed  to  prevent  the  personal  influence  of 
such  officials  with  the  Monarch  from  transgressing  its 
rightful  limits,  but  some  of  them  have  unquestionably  played 
a  much  larger  part  in  the  affairs  of  State  than  that  to  which 
they  were  theoretically  entitled.  Hence,  doubtless,  the 
persistence  of  the  belief,  especially  in  Hungary,  that  a 
Vienna  Court  Camarilla  exists  in  defiance  of  Constitutional 
Law.  If  it  exists  or  has  existed,  its  influence,  during  the 
later  decades  of  the  reign,  has  frequently  been  favourable 
to  Hungary  rather  than  the  reverse,  for  some  of  the  most 
influential  Court  officials  have  been  patriotic  Hungarians. 
The  question  whether  there  exists  a  separate  Austrian  and 
a  separate  Hungarian  Court  cannot  be  answered  in  the 
affirmative,  though  eminent  Hungarian  authorities  claim  that 
the  Hungarian  Court  has  never  ceased  to  exist  and  that 
under  the  Constitutional  Statute  XII.  of  1867  the  cost  of 
maintaining  the  Court  is  not  a  joint  or  common  affair. 
Nevertheless,  these  authorities  admit  (cf.  Marczali,  Un- 
garisches  Verfassungsrecht,  p.  69)  that  there  is  now  no 
permanent  Hungarian  Court.  In  truth,  the  Court,  like  the 
Monarch,  is  joint,  or  common  to  both  States,  though  the 
civil  list  is  voted  separately  by  the  Austrian  and  Hungarian 
parliaments,  and  though  there  has  been  since  1895  a  special 
Court  Marshal  for  Hungary,  since  1903  a  Hungarian  Court 
Marshal's  Office,  and  since  1905  a  special  Hungarian  body- 
guard. A  rescript  of  November  1893  ordained  moreover 
that  Hungarian  bannerets  take  the  place  of  the  Austrian 
Court  officials  at  the  Coronation  of  the  Hungarian  King, 
the  opening  and  closing  of  Parliament,  and  the  reception  of 
the  Hungarian  Delegation. 

With  the  exception  of  those  Court  officials  whose  positions 


42  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

and  functions  are  constitutionally  recognized,  the  Monarch 
has  absolute  control  of  the  Court.  He  settles  all  questions 
of  ceremonial  and  the  forms  of  admission  -  to  his  presence. 
Parliament  is  not  entitled  to  send  deputations  to  him  save 
with  his  permission.  The  residence  of  the  Monarch  and  his 
Court,  as  distinguished  from  his  private  property,  is  not 
subject  to  any  provincial  or  communal  jurisdiction.  The 
Monarch  is,  moreover,  entitled  to  dispose  of  the  local  police 
as  he  may  wish,  and  even  the  State  Authorities  can  only 
operate  within  the  Court  domain  with  the  permission  of  the 
Court  officials. 


THE  HAPSBURG  FAMILY  LAW 

Much  more  complicated  than  the  relationship  of  the 
Monarch  to  the  Court  is  his  position  in  regard  to  the 
Imperial  and  Royal  House  or  Family.1  There  exists  a 
Hapsburg  Family  Law  drawn  up  on  February  3,  1839,  of 
which  the  provisions  are  unpublished  and  secret.  Analogies 
doubtless  exist  between  it  and  the  family  laws  of  other 
German  princely  houses,  but,  in  the  case  of  the  Hapsburg 
Family  Law,  argument  from  analogy  is  insufficient.  The 
Pragmatic  Sanction,2  which,  with  its  provision  for  the 

1  The  House  of  Hapsburg  consists  of  the  Emperor  as  Head,  his  wife,  the 
surviving  widows  of  his  predecessors,   the  Archdukes  and  Archduchesses   de- 
scended in  male  lineage  from  eligible  \ebenburtig)  marriages  contracted  with  the 
consent  of  the  Head  of  the  Family  at  the  time  being. 

2  The  "Pragmatic  Sanction,"  or  Statute  endowed  with  peculiar  solemnity, 
consists  mainly  of  the  provisions  of  the  Pactum  mufuae  successionis  secretly 
concluded  on  September  12,  1703,  between  the  Emperor  Leopold  and  his  two 
sons  Joseph  and  Charles.     The  Pactum  was  an  arrangement  for  the  inheritance 
of  the  Lands  of  the  Spanish  Throne  (which  had  been  assigned  to  Charles)  and  of 
those  of  the  Austrian  Throne  (reserved  for  Leopold  and  his  eldest  son  Joseph)  by 
whomsoever  should  survive  the  other  parties  to  the  Pactum,  and  by  the  survivor's 
heirs  in  accordance  with  the  right  of  primogeniture  in  the  male  line,  or,  eventually, 
in  the  female  line  in  default  of  heirs  male.    When  Charles  succeeded  to  the  Austrian 
throne  as  Emperor  Charles  VI.,  and  found  himself,  in  consequence  of  the  deaths 
of  Leopold  and  Joseph,  the  last  male  of  his  line,  the  Croatian-Slavonian  Estates 
hastened  to  declare  (1712)  that,  in  case  of  the  extinction  of  the  male  line,  they 
would  recognize  as  Ruler  that  Princess  of  the  Arch-House  who  should  possess 
Austria,  Styria,  Carinthia,  and  Carnolia,  and  should  reside  in  Vienna.    Charles  VI. 


THE  MONARCH  AND  THE  MONARCHY  43 

indivisible  unity  of  the  Hapsburg  Lands  and  their  obligation 
of  mutual  defence,  forms  the  juridical  basis  of  the  Monarchy, 
establishes  the  right  of  succession  of  that  member  of  the 
House  of  Austria  whom  in  the  order  of  primogeniture,  with 
precedence  to  males,  the  Family  Law  shall  designate.  The 
question  therefore  arises  whether  the  Emperor  is  bound  by 
the  Family  Law  or  whether  he  is  superior  to  it ;  further, 
whether,  in  case  he  can  alter  the  Family  Law,  the  alteration 
can  be  made  single-handed  or  requires  the  assent  of  a  Family 
Council  ;  and  again,  whether  the  validity  of  the  Family  Law 
is  subject  or  superior  to  that  of  the  Constitutional  Law  of 
the  State  in  case  of  conflict  between  them.  Professor  Tezner 
declares *  that  "  the  House-Power  of  the  Emperor  as  ruler  of 
the  House  of  Austria  comprises  all  the  elements  of  the  rule 
of  a  chieftain  or  patriarch.  .  .  .  As  possessor  of  the  House- 
Power,  the  Emperor  is  Lord  and  therefore  not  subject  to  it, 
though  bound  by  it  within  the  limits  of  its  legal  (i.e.  consti- 
tutionally promulgated)  provisions.  Family  and  public  law 
are  here  so  merged  in  each  other  that  it  is  hard  to  say  where 
one  begins  and  the  other  ends.  The  House-Power  expresses 
itself  in  all  the  forms  of  the  power  of  the  State,  i.e.  in  legis- 
lation, administration  and  jurisdiction.  In  the  domain  of 
private  law  it  renders  requisite  the  Emperor's  assent  to  the 
contraction  of  marriages  by  members  of  the  Imperial  and 

was  of  opinion  that  the  solemn  proclamation  of  the  secret  Pactum  mutuae  succes- 
sionis  of  1 703  would  suffice  to  settle  the  question  of  the  succession  to  all  his 
hereditary  dominions  in  favour  of  his  daughter  Maria  Theresa  ;  and  the  Pactum 
was  consequently  proclaimed  at  Vienna  as  a  Sanctio  Pragmatica  on  April  19, 
1713.  The  Hungarians,  irritated  by  the  independent  action  of  the  Croatian- 
Slavonian  Estates,  whom  they  regarded  as  subject  to  the  Hungarian  Crown,  not 
only  declined  to  recognize  the  Sanctio  thus  proclaimed,  but  obliged  Charles  VI. 
by  the  Hungarian  Statute  III.  of  the  year  1715  expressly  to  admit  the  validity 
of  the  Leopoldine  order  of  succession.  Having  thus  "saved  their  faces"  by 
upsetting,  as  far  as  Hungary  was  concerned,  the  validity  of  the  Vienna  proclama- 
tion of  April  1713,  the  Hungarians  eventually  agreed  that  the  Emperor  should 
submit  the  Pragmatic  Sanction  to  all  the  Estates  of  the  Lands  under  his  sceptre, 
with  a  request  that  they  recognize  it  as  binding  upon  them  for  ever.  Only  when 
the  Sanction  had  been  accepted  by  the  Estates  of  all  these  Lands,  did  the 
Hungarians  consent  to  enact  it  as  a  part  of  their  Constitution  by  the  Statutes  I. 
and  II.  of  the  session  of  1722-1723. 

1   Oesterreichisches  Staatsrecht :  Der  Kaiser,  p.  59. 


44  THE   HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

Royal  House,  and  makes  the  validity  of  their  wills  and 
marriage  contracts  depend  upon  his  sanction.  ...  It  is 
further  reserved  to  the  Emperor  to  appoint  a  tribunal  in  every 
special  case  for  the  criminal  punishment  of  members  of  the 
Imperial  House,  or  to  inflict  the  punishment  in  person.  In 
disciplinary  matters  his  decision  is  also  final,  and  in  cases  of 
the  banishment  or  imprisonment  of  members  of  the  Family, 
his  personal  taste  settles  whether  such  measures  are  dis- 
ciplinary or  administrative,  as,  for  instance,  expulsion  by  the 
police  or  confinement." 

But,  adds  Tezner,  inasmuch  as  the  Imperial  Patent  of 
August  II,  1804,  which  created  the  Austrian  Imperial  title, 
describes  the  Emperor  without  limitation  as  the  "  Ruler  of 
the  House,"  and  since  this  important  Patent  was  issued  also 
in  regard  to  the  Family  Law  without  any  reference  to  a 
Family  Council,  the  House-Power  of  the  Emperor,  so  far  as 
it  can  be  proved  to  reach,  must  be  regarded  as  absolute. 
Tezner,  however,  lays  down  the  principle  that,  as  regards  the 
relationship  between  the  Power  of  the  State  and  the  House- 
Power  of  the  Monarch,  the  latter  is  subject  and  not  accessory 
to  the  former.  Even  in  the  absolutist  State,  the  Family  Law 
was  recognized  as  subject  to  the  Law  of  the  State  by  the 
declaration  that  the  Pragmatic  Sanction  could  not  be  changed 
by  Family  legislation.  Family  Law  can,  on  the  other  hand, 
be  raised  by  Constitutional  legislation  to  the  level  of  State 
Law,  as  is  shown  by  the  Pragmatic  Sanction  which,  originally 
a  Family  Statute,  became  a  law  of  the  State  through  its 
recognition  by  the  Estates  of  the  Realms  ;  and  it  is  con- 
ceivable that  Constitutional  legislation  could  modify  or  even 
abrogate  the  Family  Law.1  Tezner  further  advances  the 
somewhat  fine-drawn  argument  that  the  superiority  of  Con- 
stitutional Law  over  Family  Law  is  also  shown  by  Clause  1 6 
of  the  Austrian  Constitutional  Statute  (No.  141)  of  December 
1867,  which  declares  that  members  of  the  Reichsrath — to 
the  Upper  Chamber  of  which  Princes  of  the  Imperial  House 
belong  by  birth — can  never  be  called  to  account  for  votes 

1   Cf.  Tezner,  op.  cit.  p.  60. 


THE  MONARCH  AND  THE  MONARCHY  45 

given  in  discharge  of  their  functions,  and  only  by  the 
Chamber  to  which  they  belong  for  utterances  made  in  their 
legislative  capacity.  However  this  may  be,  it  is  clear  that, 
in  so  far  as  the  right  of  succession  to  the  monarchical  position 
and  functions  is  concerned,  the  Emperor  cannot,  with  or 
without  a  Family  Council,  so  modify  the  Family  Law  as  to 
make  it  override  the  Law  of  the  State.  A  Family  Council 
appears  only  to  have  exercised  an  important  influence  upon 
the  order  of  succession  at  the  moment  of  the  abdication  of 
the  Emperor  Ferdinand  and  the  accession  of  Francis  Joseph 
in  1848  ;  but  even  the  right  of  abdication  is  not  absolute  in 
regard  to  the  whole  Monarchy,  for  the  Hungarian  Constitu- 
tion makes  the  validity  of  an  abdication  contingent  upon  its 
ratification  by  the  Hungarian  Parliament. 

Yet,  as  in  most  things  Austrian,  it  is  necessary  carefully 
to  distinguish  between  principle  and  practice,  theory  and 
execution.  However  clear  the  superiority  of  the  laws  of 
the  State  over  the  Hapsburg  Family  Law  may  seem  to  be, 
the  facts  are  that,  within  the  framework  of  the  Pragmatic 
Sanction,  the  power  of  the  Emperor  is  practically  absolute, 
and  that,  were  he  at  any  moment  to  suspend  the  Funda- 
mental Laws  of  the  Austrian  State  or  radically  to  revise 
them,  he  would  meet  with  little  or  no  resistance,  especially 
if  the  suspension  or  revision  were  made  to  appear  conducive 
to  popular  welfare.  Hence  the  unutterable  tiresomeness  of 
most  Austrian  constitutional  questions.  At  bottom  they  are 
felt  to  be  questions  of  dynastic  expediency.  Francis  Joseph 
was  long  an  absolute  ruler.  Defeat  abroad  and  disaster  at 
home  were  required  to  convince  him  in  1 859  that  absolutism  is 
apt  to  be  both  expensive  and  inefficient ;  and  financial  stress 
subsequently  effected  what  the  revolution  of  1848  had  failed 
permanently  to  assure.  There  is,  it  is  true,  little  likelihood 
of  a  return  in  Austria  to  naked  absolutism,  though  a  sus- 
pension or  revision  of  the  1867  Constitution  is  a  possibility 
if  not  a  probability  of  the  future.  And  as  regards  the 
authority  of  the  Emperor  over  the  members  of  the  Imperial 
and  Royal  House,  it  seems  likely  to  remain  in  future  as 


46  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

absolute  as  in  the  past  No  one  who  has  seen  the  Emperor 
Francis  Joseph  drill  a  dozen  Archdukes  at  the  reception 
of  a  foreign  sovereign,  causing  them  to  line  up  like  a 
company  of  recruits,  can  doubt  that  his  authority  over 
them  is  unquestioned.  Serious  misbehaviour  on  the  part 
of  an  Archduke  is  sometimes  punished  by  exile  to  a 
distant  province,  even  if  the  offender  be  the  Emperor's 
own  brother.  Other  Archdukes  have  been  brusquely  sent 
back  to  their  garrison  towns  for  having  appeared  to 
court  popularity  in  the  capital.  It  is  indeed  conceivable 
that  some  frondeur  among  the  Archdukes  might  avail 
himself  of  his  membership  of  the  Upper  Chamber  of  the 
Reichsrath  and  of  his  constitutionally  guaranteed  parlia- 
mentary immunity  to  criticise  in  public,  by  word  or  deed, 
the  policy  of  the  Emperor's  government ;  but  not  even 
the  most  insubordinate  of  Archdukes  —  and  there  have 
been  some  whose  private  reverence  for  the  Emperor  left 
much  to  be  desired — has  hitherto  ventured  to  make  public 
opposition  to  the  Head  of  the  House.  Otherwise,  means 
would  assuredly  have  been  found  to  prevent  him  from 
repeating  the  experiment  and  to  deter  other  Archdukes 
from  imitating  his  example. 

In  one  important  respect,  the  question  as  to  the  stand- 
ing of  the  Family  Law  in  conjunction  or  in  conflict  with 
the  Law  of  the  State  may  acquire  grave  importance.  As 
in  England  under  the  Royal  Marriages  Act,  so  in  Austria- 
Hungary  under  the  Hapsburg  Family  Law,  the  validity  of 
archducal  marriages  is  contingent  upon  the  consent  of  the 
Sovereign.  The  marriage  of  the  Heir-Apparent,  Archduke 
Francis  Ferdinand  with  Countess  Sophie  Chotek,  now 
Duchess  of  Hohenberg,  is  valid  inasmuch  as  it  received 
Imperial  assent.  But  that  consent  was  given  on  condition 
that  the  Heir-Apparent  should  solemnly  swear  and  declare 
that  neither  his  wife  nor  their  issue  should  be  entitled  to 
succeed  to  the  Hapsburg  throne.  The  basis  of  this  oath 
and  declaration  was  the  conception  that,  in  virtue  of  a 
provision  of  the  Hapsburg  Family,  or  House,  Law,  the 


THE  MONARCH  AND  THE  MONARCHY  47 

Countess  Chotek,  though  belonging  to  the  ancient  nobility 
of  Bohemia,  was  not  as  eligible  for  marriage  with  a  Prince 
of  the  Blood -Imperial  as  if  she  had  belonged  to  one  of 
the  mediatized  families  whose  eligibility  was  recognized  in 
1815.  The  marriage  was  therefore  classed  as  "morganatic," 
and  the  Heir-Apparent  was  regarded  as  having  contracted 
a  mesalliance.  But  it  is  urged  by  prominent  Austrian 
jurisconsults  that  the  German  conception  of  eligibility  or 
Ebenbiirtigkeit,  i.e.  equality  of  birth-rank  with  the  members 
of  reigning  or  mediatized  houses,  has  never  been  recognized 
by  Austrian  Law  nor  admitted  by  the  Bohemian  Feudal 
aristocracy  to  which  the  Chotek  family  belongs  ;  and  that 
the  idea  of  a  morganatic  marriage  is  foreign  to  the  law  of 
the  land.  The  exclusion  of  the  Duchess  of  Hohenberg  and 
her  children  from  the  order  of  succession  to  the  Hapsburg 
throne  is  therefore  declared  by  these  jurisconsults  to  depend, 
as  far  as  Austria  is  concerned,  upon  the  validity  of  whatever 
provisions  the  Hapsburg  Family  Law  may  contain  on  the 
subject  of  Ebenburtigkeit,  and  upon  the  oath  and  declaration 
made  in  pursuance  of  those  provisions  by  the  Heir- Apparent 
on  his  marriage. 

In  Hungary  the  case  is  different.  By  the  Hungarian 
Pragmatic  Sanction  (Statute  II.  of  1722-23)  Hungary 
bound  herself  to  accept  as  ruler  the  Archdukes  or  Arch- 
duchesses of  the  House  of  Austria  in  the  order  of  primo- 
geniture recognized  by  the  House.  Nevertheless,  as  regards 
the  marriage  of  the  Archduke  Francis  Ferdinand  the 
Hungarian  Parliament  did  not  accept  the  Archduke's  oath 
and  Declaration  as  being  valid  in  virtue  of  the  Family 
Law,  but  embodied  it  in  a  Statute  of  the  Hungarian 
Realm  (Statute  XXIV.  of  1900),  so  that  its  modification  or 
repeal  could  only  be  effected  by  similar  legislation.1  During 

1  The  Declaration  thus  enacted  as  a  Hungarian  Statute  runs  : — 
"  We,  Archduke  Francis  Ferdinand  Charles  Louis  Joseph  Maria  of  Austria- 
Este,  etc.,  declare  it  to  be  our  firm  and  well-considered  resolve  to  unite  Ourself 
in  marriage  with  Countess  Sophie  Maria  Josefine  Albina  Chotek  of  Chotowa  and 
Wognin,  etc.  According  to  the  observance  existing  from  time  immemorial  in 
the  Most  Serene  Arch-House,  and  with  the  provisions  of  the  Laws  of  the  House 


48  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

the  debate  on  the  Declaration,  the  Hungarian  Opposition 
urged  with  cogency  that  as  Hungarian  Law  recognizes  no 
morganatic  marriages,  it  is  inconceivable  that  the  lawful 
wife  of  the  King  of  Hungary  should  not  be  Queen  of 
Hungary.  Whether  the  adoption  of  the  Declaration  in  the 
form  of  a  Statute  by  the  Hungarian  Parliament  invalidates 
this  thesis  as  regards  the  Duchess  of  Hohenberg,  is  a  question 
which  may  presently  be  fertile  in  opportunities  for  political 
bargaining  of  the  kind  so  frequent  in  the  history  of  the 
relations  between  the  Magyar  nation  and  the  House  of 
Austria  ;  but  its  reference  to  the  Pragmatic  Sanction  cer- 
tainly excludes  her  children  from  the  order  of  succession  to 
the  Hungarian  Throne,  inasmuch  as,  under  the  Pragmatic 
Sanction,  the  Kings  of  Hungary  must  be  legitimate  descend- 
ants of  Austrian  Archdukes  and  Archduchesses.  The  Duchess 


which  bind  Us,  We  have  sought  and  obtained  the  consent  of  His  Imperial  and 
Royal  Apostolic  Majesty  the  Emperor  and  King  Francis  Joseph  I.  gloriously 
reigning,  Our  exalted  Uncle,  as  the  Most  Serene  supreme  Head  of  the  Arch- 
House  aforesaid,  and  His  Majesty  has  deigned  graciously  to  grant  Us  the  same 
as  a  new  proof  of  His  Most  High  favour  and  goodwill.  But  before  we  proceed 
to  conclude  the  marriage  bond,  We  feel  Ourself  moved  to  establish — invoking 
the  House  Laws  aforesaid,  the  provisions  of  which  We  recognize  in  their 
entirety  and  declare  binding  for  Us  quite  particularly  with  regard  to  the  present 
marriage  which  We  are  about  to  contract — that  Our  marriage  with  the  Countess 
Chotek  is  not  an  eligible  (ebenbiirtige)  but  a  morganatic  marriage  and  is  to  be 
considered  as  such  for  now  and  all  time,  in  consequence  whereof  neither  Our 
wife  nor  the  issue  to  be  hoped  for  with  God's  blessing  from  this  Our  marriage 
nor  their  descendants  will  possess  or  be  entitled  to  claim  those  rights,  titles, 
armorial  bearings,  privileges,  etc.,  that  belong  to  the  eligible  wives  and  to  the 
issue  of  Archdukes  from  eligible  marriages.  And  in  particular  We  again  ex- 
pressly recognize  and  declare  that  inasmuch  as  the  issue  from  Our  aforesaid 
marriage  and  their  descendants  are  not  members  of  the  Most  High  Arch-House, 
they  possess  no  right  to  succeed  to  the  Throne  in  the  Kingdoms  and  Lands  re- 
presented in  the  Reichsrath  (Austria),  nor  consequently,  in  virtue  of  the  Statutes 
I.  and  II.  (Pragmatic  Sanction)  of  1723,  in  the  Lands  of  the  Hungarian  Crown, 
and  that  the  same  are  excluded  from  the  Order  of  Succession. 

"  We  pledge  Our  word  that  we  recognize  as  binding  for  all  time  the  present 
declaration,  of  whose  significance  and  scope  We  are  fully  conscious,  both  for  Us 
and  Our  wife  and  for  our  children  by  this  marriage,  and  that  We  will  never 
attempt  to  revoke  this  Our  present  declaration  nor  undertake  anything  calculated 
to  enfeeble  or  to  abrogate  the  binding  force  thereof." 

Though  enacted  as  a  Statute  in  Hungary  this  declaration  was  merely  com- 
municated to  the  Reichsrath  in  Austria  and  by  it  "taken  note  of"  in  a  simple 
resolution. 


THE  MONARCH  AND  THE  MONARCHY  49 

of  Hohenberg  is  not  an  Austrian  Archduchess,  nor  is  it 
certain  that  her  eventual  acquisition  of  the  rank  of  Queen 
in  Hungary  could  establish  retrospectively  any  claim  on  her 
part  to  be  considered  an  Archduchess.  Her  husband's 
Declaration  recognizes  indeed  the  Hapsburg  Family  Law  as 
binding  and,  in  pursuance  thereof,  the  morganatic  character 
of  his  marriage  ;  but  the  Hungarian  Parliament  enacted  the 
Declaration  as  a  Statute  in  virtue  of  its  agreement  with 
Statutes  I.  and  II.  of  1722—23,  and,  in  the  preamble,  omitted 
express  reference  to  the  Family  Law.  In  adopting  the 
Declaration,  the  Hungarian  Parliament  laid  down,  more- 
over, the  important  principle  that  all  questions  relating  to 
the  succession  must  be  judged  in  the  light  of  Statutes  I. 
and  II.  of  1722-23  ;  that  is  to  say,  in  the  light  of  the 
Pragmatic  Sanction  and  of  the  Statute  introductory  to 
it.  Those  Statutes  state  merely  (Statute  I.  of  1722—23, 
Clause  3)  that  the  order  of  succession  shall  be  "  regulated, 
preserved,  and  assured  (in  Hungary)  in  accordance  with 
the  order  settled,  established,  promulgated  and  accepted  by 
his  Majesty  in  the  remaining  hereditary  Kingdoms  and 
Lands  of  his  sacred  Majesty  inside  and  outside  Germany, 
without  distinction,  and  giving  precedence  to  the  male  sex 
in  equal  degree  of  relationship  in  the  same  line."  The 
Hungarian  Parliament  has,  by  enacting  the  Declaration 
as  a  Statute  and  thus  embodying  it  in  the  Constitution, 
assured  its  own  right  of  future  decision  concerning  the 
compatibility  of  the  provisions  of  the  Family  Law  in  regard 
to  Ebenbilrtigkeit  with  the  premisses  of  the  order  of  succes- 
sion to  the  Hungarian  Crown  established  by  the  Pragmatic 
Sanction.  Therefore  the  provisions  of  the  Family  Law, 
including  those  concerning  Ebenbilrtigkeit,  or  equality  of 
birth-rank,  are,  as  regards  Hungary,  subject  to  the  control 
of  the  Hungarian  Parliament  and  to  the  extraordinary 
skill  of  Magyar  political  lawyers  in  the  interpretation  of 
constitutional  precepts. 

If  it  be  imagined  for  a  moment  that,  upon  the  accession 
of  the  Archduke  Francis  Ferdinand  to  the  Hapsburg  Throne, 

E 


50  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

his  wife  were  to  be  recognized  as  rightful  Queen  of  Hungary 
and  that  in  Austria  the  conception  of  Ebenburligkeit  should 
be  maintained  with  its  consequence  in  the  recognition  of  the 
Archduke  Charles  Francis  Joseph,  nephew  of  the  Archduke 
Francis  Ferdinand  and  great-nephew  of  the  Emperor  Francis 
Joseph,  as  Heir-Apparent  to  the  Hapsburg  throne,  it  will  be 
seen  that  a  delicate  situation  might  arise.  True,  the  Arch- 
duke Francis  Ferdinand's  Declaration  binds  him  absolutely  ; 
but  though  he  has  sworn  not  to  seek  release  from  his 
oath,  it  is  open  to  the  Hungarian  Parliament  and  indeed  to 
the  Austrian  Parliament,  to  petition  the  Pope  for  a  dispensa- 
tion. Moreover,  the  questions  have  been  raised  whether  the 
Archduke  was  entitled  to  swear  away  the  possible  rights  of 
persons  unborn  ;  and  whether,  if  the  conception  of  Ebenbiir- 
tigkeit  can  be  proved  to  have  no  established  validity  in 
Austrian  or  Hungarian  Law  and,  consequently,  that  the 
Duchess  of  Hohenberg  ought  to  have  ranked  as  an  Archduchess 
from  the  moment  of  her  marriage,  their  children  would  always 
acquiesce  in  the  forfeiture  of  their  conceivable  rights  by  the 
paternal  declaration.  In  these  circumstances,  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  voices  in  Austria  should  already  have  called 
upon  the  Emperor  Francis  Joseph  to  repair,  before  his  death, 
the  error  he  committed  in  assenting  to  the  contraction  of  a 
morganatic  marriage  by  the  Heir- Apparent.  Either,  it  has 
been  argued,  such  assent  ought  never  to  have  been  given 
since  it  involves  the  dynasty  in  a  series  of  perilous  un- 
certainties, or,  when  once  it  was  given,  the  Countess  Chotek 
should  have  been  raised  to  the  rank  of  Archduchess  and 
the  non-Austrian  conception  of  Ebenbiirtigkeit  should  not 
have  been  invoked  as  a  reason  for  excluding  the  children  of 
the  marriage  from  the  order  of  succession.  The  Emperor 
Francis  Joseph,  it  has  been  claimed,  is  alone  in  a  position  to 
remedy  this  error  and  to  remove  the  obstacles  to  the  recogni- 
tion of  the  children  of  the  Archduke  Francis  Ferdinand  and 
of  the  Duchess  of  Hohenberg  as  Archdukes  of  Austria.  But 
the  marriage  of  the  second  Heir-Apparent,  the  Archduke 
Charles  Francis  Joseph,  to  Princess  Zita  of  Bourbon-Parma 


THE  MONARCH  AND  THE  MONARCHY   51 

in  1911,  and  the  birth  of  their  son,  the  infant  Archduke 
Francis  Joseph,  have  presumably  settled  in  the  negative  all 
question  of  raising  the  Duchess  of  Hohenberg  and  her  children 
to  archducal  rank  ;  and  though  she  may  be  recognized  as 
Queen  of  Hungary  and  even,  by  courtesy,  as  Empress  of 
Austria  should  her  husband  survive  the  Emperor  Francis 
Joseph  and  succeed  to  the  throne,  it  now  appears  im- 
probable that  the  graver  issues  concerning  her  children 
will  be  added  to  the  preoccupations  of  Austro-Hungarian 
statesmen. 

Of  these  issues  the  gravest  was  undoubtedly  the  lever 
which  the  Declaration  of  the  Heir-Apparent  placed  in  the 
hands. of  the  Hungarian  Parliament  Ever  since  the  growth 
of  the  Magyar  Nationalist  conception  of  the  Dual  System, 
the  tendency  of  Magyar  jurisconsults  and  politicians  has 
been  to  whittle  away  every  feature  of  the  Settlement  indica- 
tive of  the  "  indissoluble  unity  "  of  the  Hapsburg  dominions 
as  laid  down  in  the  Hungarian  as  well  as  in  the  Austrian 
Pragmatic  Sanction.  The  Dual  System  reposes  upon  the 
conception  of  the  Monarch  as  three  juridical  personalities  in 
one  physical  person, — to  wit,  the  Emperor  of  Austria  ruling 
over  the  "  Kingdoms  and  Lands  represented  in  the  Reichs- 
rath  "  ;  the  King  of  Hungary  ruling  over  the  Lands  of  the 
Crown  of  St.  Stephen  ;  and  the  Joint  Monarch  representing 
the  joint  interests  of  a  polity,  unitary  in  its  relations  with 
foreign  countries  though  dual,  save  in  regard  to  the  main 
aspects  of  military  matters,  in  its  internal  arrangements. 
The  Magyars  have  consistently  striven  for  at  least  a  genera- 
tion to  deny  the  existence  of  the  Joint  Monarch,  and  have 
put  forward  the  contention,  both  in  theory  and  practice, 
that  in'  dealing  with  foreign  countries  he  is  merely  a  dual 
person  simultaneously  Emperor  of  Austria  and  King  of 
Hungary,  but  not  a  unitary  Austro-Hungarian  Monarch. 
They  have  tried  to  exclude  "the  Emperor"  from  any  rela- 
tionship to  Hungarian  affairs,  and  when  obliged  to  refer  to 
him  in  his  joint  capacity  have  constantly  preferred  the 
designation  "  His  Majesty  "  to  the  correct  constitutional  style 


52  THE   HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

"  His  Imperial  and  Royal  Apostolic  Majesty."  Similarly  in 
regard  to  other  features  of  constitutional  terminology.  The 
expression  "  Empire,"  l  meaning  the  whole  Monarchy,  which 
Deak  and  Andrassy  accepted  without  difficulty  and  included 
in  the  Hungarian  Statute  XII.  of  1867,  has  disappeared 
from  modern  Hungarian  political  literature  or  has  been  con- 
fiscated for  the  sole  use  of  the  Kingdom  of  Hungary.  Objec- 
tion has  even  been  taken  to  the  term  "  Austro-Hungarian  " 
and  the  use  of  "  Austrian  and  Hungarian  "  demanded.  The 
Emperor  Francis  Joseph  as  joint  monarch  has  made  conces- 
sion after  concession  to  this  separatist  tendency,  partly  out 
of  a  desire  for  a  quiet  life  and  partly  out  of  a  feeling,  very 
widespread  in  Austria,  that,  despite  titular  niceties  and  legal 
chicane,  the  future  relationship  of  Austria  to  Hungary  and 
vice  versa  will  be  settled  by  the  respective  strengths  of  the 
two  countries  and  by  the  power  of  the  one  to  impose  its  will 
on  the  other.  In  Hungary,  no  less  than  in  Austria,  public 
opinion  has  come  increasingly  to  regard  the  question  as 
destined  one  day  to  be  settled  by  a  trial  of  strength,  and 
for  this  reason  also  the  Magyars  have  sought  to  extend 
their  control  over  the  Hungarian  regiments  of  the  joint 
army.  The  Crown,  for  its  part,  appears  to  have  been 
less  than  prudent  in  not  perceiving  the  use  that  can 
be  made  of  titular  concessions  in  working  up  a  body  of 
politico-juridical  doctrine  which,  in  case  of  need,  could  be 
made  to  command  the  passionate  support  of  a  masterful 
people. 

In  no  recent  development  has  the  fundamental  diver- 
gence of  the  Austrian  and  the  Magyar  tendencies — the  one 
unitary,  the  other  separatist — been  so  clearly  revealed  as  in 
connexion  with  the  annexation  of  Bosnia-Herzegovina.  The 
juridical  title  to  the  possession  of  those  provinces  is  based 
upon  the  European  mandate  given  to  Austria-Hungary  by 
the  Congress  of  Berlin  to  "  occupy  and  administer  "  them  ; 
and  upon  the  assent  of  the  Great  Powers,  in  the  spring  of 
1909,  to  the  extension  of  Austro-Hungarian  sovereignty  to 

1  In  Magyar  "  birodalom." 


THE  MONARCH  AND  THE  MONARCHY   53 

the  provinces.  In  the  rescript  of  annexation  dated  October 
5,  1908,  and  addressed  to  Baron  von  Aehrenthal,  Joint 
Minister  of  the  Imperial  and  Royal  House  and  for  Foreign 
Affairs,  the  Emperor  Francis  Joseph  wrote,  "  I  extend  the 
rights  of  my  sovereignty  to  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina,  and  at 
the  same  time  put  into  force  for  these  Lands  also  the  order 
of  succession  of  my  House."  The  sovereignty  thus  extended 
was  undifferentiated.  Under  the  Austrian  Law  of  February 
1880  and  the  Hungarian  Statute  VI.  of  the  same  year  it  is 
requisite  that  any  change  in  the  relationship  of  these  pro- 
vinces to  the  Monarchy  should  receive  the  concordant  assent 
of  the  legislatures  of  both  parts  of  the  Monarchy.  Despite 
this  provision,  the  Hungarian  Bill  which  registers  the  annexa- 
tion differs  essentially  from  the  Austrian  Bill.  Whereas  the 
latter  simply  accepts  the  extension  of  sovereignty  and  of  the 
order  of  succession,  the  former  "takes  note"  that  his  Imperial 
and  Royal  Apostolic  Majesty  has  extended  his  Sovereign 
rights  to  those  lands  "  out  of  regard  for  the  ancient  ties  that 
united  those  lands  to  his  glorious  predecessors  on  the  Hun- 
garian throne."  Further,  the  Hungarian  Bill  does  not  "  take 
note  "  of  the  extension  of  the  Hapsburg  order  of  succession 
to  Bosnia- Herzegovina,  but  ordains  independently  that  "  the 
provisions  of  Statutes  I.  and  II.  (Pragmatic  Sanction)  of  the 
year  1723  come  into  force  in  respect  of  these  Lands  also." 
The  object  of  this  independent  legislative  provision  on  the 
part  of  Hungary  is  to  deny,  by  implication,  the  right  of  the 
Monarch  to  extend  the  order  of  succession  of  his  House  to 
new  territories  by  an  act  of  undifferentiated  sovereignty ; 
and  at  the  same  time  to  reiterate  the  principle  enunciated 
in  the  preamble  to  the  enactment  of  the  marriage  declara- 
tion of  the  Archduke  Francis  Ferdinand  that  "  the  settlement 
of  the  order  of  succession  contained  in  Statutes  I.  and  II. 
(Pragmatic  Sanction)  of  the  year  1723  is,  as  regards  its 
origin,  conditions,  and  contents,  an  entirely  independent 
settlement,  and  that  all  questions  appertaining  to  the  succes- 
sion are  to  be  judged  in  accordance  with  the  provisions"  of 
those  Statutes.  This  Hungarian  attitude  has  a  double  if  not 


54  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

^ 

a  triple  purpose.  As  regards  the  actual  possession  of  Bosnia- 
Herzegovina,  it  seeks,  by  referring  to  the  ancient  ties  which 
bound  those  provinces  to  the  glorious  predecessors  of  Francis 
Joseph  on  the  Hungarian  -Throne,  to  establish  a  special 
Hungarian  claim  to  the  eventual  incorporation  of  the  pro- 
vinces in  the  Kingdom  of  Hungary  ;  and,  by  citing  the 
Hungarian  Pragmatic  Sanction,  of  which  Clause  5  deals 
with  the  "succession  to  the  Kingdom  and  Crown  of 
Hungary  and  to  the  Lands  and  Kingdoms  thereto  belonging 
which  with  God's  help  have  been  won  back  (from  the 
Turks)  and  may  be  won  back  in  future,"  to  make  it  appear 
as  though  special  provision  had  been  made  in  1723  for  the 
reservation  of  Hungarian  rights  to  Bosnia  -  Herzegovina, 
which  Hungarian  historians  identify  with  the  legendary 
Kingdom  of  Rama,  that  is  reputed  once  to  have  been 
subject  for  a  brief  period  to  the  Hungarian  Crown.  But 
the  special  purpose  of  the  Hungarian  attitude  is  to  reject 
the  pretension  that  the  Act  of  Annexation  was  an  act 
of  the  joint  Austro-Hungarian  Monarch,  or  the  sovereignty 
he  extended  the  joint  Austro-Hungarian  Sovereignty, 
and  thus  to  counteract  as  far  as  possible  the  Austrian 
claim  that  Bosnia -Herzegovina  are  provinces  belong- 
ing to  the  Monarchy  as  a  whole  and  a  kind  of  Dual 
Reichsland. 

In  point  of  fact  the  Hungarian  claim  to  special  rights 
to  the  possession  of  Bosnia-Herzegovina  is  very  nebulous, 
although  the  banners  and  emblems  of  the  "  Kingdom  of 
Rama"  figure  at  the  coronation  of  the  Kings  of  Hungary. 
The  Turkish  title  to  the  possession  of  Bosnia-Herzegovina 
was  repeatedly  recognized  by  Austro-Hungarian  monarchs, 
particularly  by  the  peace  of  Sistovo  (August  4,  1791) ;  and 
the  occupation  of  the  provinces  in  1878-79  was  undertaken 
on  the  strength  of  a  mandate  given  by  Europe  to  "  Austria- 
Hungary,"  and  effected  by  Austro-Hungarian  troops.  But 
in  order  to  appreciate  Hungarian  doctrine  in  regard  to  terri- 
tories once  connected  with  the  Hungarian  Crown  it  should 
be  observed  that  even  so  cautious  a  Hungarian  authority  as 


THE  MONARCH  AND  THE  MONARCHY   55 

Professor  Henrik  Marczali  writes l  that  Hungary  has  never 
renounced  her  right  to  the  possession  of  the  Kingdoms 
of  Bosnia,  Galicia,  and  Lodomeria,  although  Galicia  and 
Lodomeria  were  recognized  in  1867  as  Austrian  Crown 
Lands ! 

The  conflicting  standpoints  in  regard  to  the  posses- 
sion of  Bosnia- Herzegovina  and  the  existence  of  a  joint 
Austro- Hungarian  Sovereignty,  the  leverage  acquired  by  the 
peculiar  position  of  Hungary  in  regard  to  the  marriage 
declaration  of  the  Archduke  Francis  Ferdinand,  and  the 
tendency  of  Hungary  towards  political  and  economic  separa- 
tion from  Austria,  are  signs  that  a  radical  readjustment  of 
the  relationship  between  Austria  and  Hungary  may  become 
indispensable.  The  present  relationship,  with  its  ambigui- 
ties and  friction,  its  unfulfilled  premisses,  and  its  restrictions 
of  the  political  development  of  various  Hapsburg  peoples,  is 
a  product  of  the  chequered  history  of  Francis  Joseph's  reign, 
and  to  some  extent  a  reflection  of  Francis  Joseph's  own 
individuality.  Years,  perhaps  decades,  may  pass  even  after 
he  has  been  gathered  to  his  fathers  before  his  political 
portrait  can  be  faithfully  drawn,  and  before  his  personal 
action  during  the  great  crises  of  his  reign  can  be  accurately 
determined.  No  modern  ruler  has  lived  through  so  many 
changes  as  he,  and  none  has  passed  through  trials  so  cruel. 
Historically,  he  is  not  one  but  several  personalities  ;  psycho- 
logically, he  is  a  compound  of  them  all.  The  youth,  not 
illiberally  educated,  who  in  1848  succeeded  to  the  throne  of 
an  Empire  in  revolt  and  learned  to  distrust  constitutionalism, 
liberalism,  and  all  forms  of  progressive  political  aspiration  ; 
the  absolutist  ruler,  led  by  stress  of  circumstance  and  reac- 
tionary advisers  to  believe  that  the  Army,  the  Church,  the 
Police,  and  the  Bureaucracy  are  the  only  reliable  pillars  of  a 
throne,  and  induced  on  his  twenty-fifth  birthday  to  present  his 
peoples  with  a  Concordat  involving  an  abject  capitulation  of 
the  State  to  the  Church ;  the  defeated  commander-in-chief 
at  Solferino,  whom  the  loss  of  Lombardy  and  the  imminence 

1   Ungarisches  Verfassungsrecht,  p.  29. 


56  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

of  State  bankruptcy  caused  to  doubt  the  wisdom  of  his  reac- 
tionary counsellors  ;  the  semi  -  constitutional  Emperor  of 
1860-65,  anxious  to  save  his  leadership  among  German 
princes,  but,  being  out-manoeuvred  by  Bismarck  at  the  Frank- 
furt Diet  of  Princes  in  1863  and  by  Moltke  at  Sadowa  in 
1 866,  was  compelled  to  fall  back  on  his  hereditary  peoples, 
to  bargain  with  Hungary  and  to  bedizen  Austria  with  Con- 
stitutional robes  in  the  vain  hope  that  what  was  irrevocably 
lost  might  yet  be  retrieved  ;  the  Dual  Monarch  of  1870—71, 
convinced  at  last  that  in  Austria  and  Hungary  alone  lay  the 
guarantees  of  a  prosperous  dynastic  future,  but  too  conscious 
of  the  changeability  of  human  affairs  to  neglect  threads  of 
policy  that  might  lead  to  fresh  avenues  of  home  and  foreign 
development ;  and,  finally,  the  Constitutional  King  of 
Hungary  and  Constitutionally-absolutist  Emperor  of  Austria, 
working  from  dawn  to  dark  as  one  dynastic  person  in  pur- 
suit of  a  perennial  dynastic  aim  and  persuaded  by  innate 
conviction,  religious  sentiment,  and  family  tradition  that, 
despite  bickerings  and  struggles,  race  feuds  and  ethnic  rival- 
ries, the  power  of  the  monarchical  function  and  the  prestige 
of  the  dynasty  would  bring  him  and  his  House  triumphantly 
into  a  better  future. 

Such  a  man  or  some  such  man  is  Francis  Joseph  of 
Hapsburg- Lorraine.  None  would  call  him  "great"  as 
greatness  is  judged  in  Monarchs  ;  those  who  call  him  "good" 
think  chiefly  of  his  private  characteristics  ;  but  all  call  him 
venerable,  some  call  him  wise,  and  few  feel  deep  enmity 
towards  him.  It  has  yet  to  be  proved  that  the  Hapsburg 
Monarchy  can  be  governed  on  a  "system."  Joseph  II.  tried 
and  failed  ;  Metternich  tried,  and  ended  his  career  in  flight 
before  a  revolution  ;  Alexander  Bach  tried,  and  found  his 
nemesis  at  Solferino ;  Schmerling  tried,  and  prepared  Sadowa. 
These  were  unitary  "systems."  Then  came  the  Dual  System, 
which  has  lasted,  well  and  ill,  some  forty-six  years,  but  has 
not  proved  a  panacea.  Francis  Joseph  has  lived  through  or 
under  all  these  "  systems,"  save  that  of  Joseph,  and  has 
reigned  over  most  of  them.  He  has  acquired  by  experience 


THE  MONARCH  AND  THE  MONARCHY   57 

the  feeling  that  systems  are  made  for  the  moment  and  for 
the  public  men  who  seek  to  apply  them,  but  that  the 
monarchical  function  is  more  than  they,  however  completely 
the  Monarch  may  seem  at  times  to  be  identified  with  them. 
It  may  be  doubted  whether  Francis  Joseph  ever  sanctioned, 
in  Home  Affairs  at  least,  any  project  or  policy  without 
having  considered  two  or  more  alternatives  which  a  slight 
change  of  circumstance  might  render  feasible.  Hence  much 
of  his  vacillation,  opportunism,  and  apparent  inconsistency. 
Had  he  been  endowed  with  creative  statesmanship,  he  might 
perhaps,  during  his  long  reign,  have  used  the  power  of  the 
Crown  to  stamp  his  dominions  with  a  permanent  impress. 
Who  can  say  what  the  Austrian  Monarchy,  and,  indeed, 
Central  Europe,  might  not  have  become,  had  Joseph  II. 
been  granted  the  years  of  Francis  Joseph,  and  had  he 
controlled  the  fortunes  of  the  House  of  Hapsburg  from 
1790  to  1830;  or  had  Francis  Joseph  been  endowed  with 
the  qualities  of  his  ancestor !  True,  he  might  have  wrecked 
his  realms  in  the  process  ;  and  those  who  argue  that  "  what- 
ever is,  is  right"  will  find  little  difficulty  in  proving  that 
during  an  era  of  economic  transition,  acute  race-consciousness 
and  democratic  aspirations,  the  temporizing  caution  and 
cynically  good-natured  adaptability  of  Francis  Joseph  may 
have  been  the  qualities  requisite  for  the  preservation  of  the 
Hapsburg  patrimony.  "  En  the'orie,  en  th^orie,  peut-etre ; 
mais,  en  pratique,  il  faut  avoir  e"te"  Empereur  soixante  ans,"  he 
replied  smilingly  to  an  ardent  adviser  who  laid  before  him 
some  new  scheme  for  the  reorganization  and  regeneration  of 
the  Monarchy.  Whatever  the  verdict  of  history  may  be,  it 
cannot  fail  to  acquit  him  of  base  motives  and  narrowness  of 
mind  ;  and  it  must  recognize  that  he  brought  to  the  discharge 
of  his  task  a  never-flagging  sense  of  duty,  a  spirit  of  self- 
denial  and  an  ever-present  feeling  that  he  would  presently 
be  required  to  give  account  of  his  stewardship.  Though  he 
followed  more  than  he  directed  the  course  of  events,  there  is 
hardly  an  episode  in  the  development  of  his  peoples  that 
would  not  have  been  otherwise  but  for  the  touch  of  his  hand. 


58  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

Francis  Joseph  will  bequeath  to  his  successor  a  rich  store  of 
dynastic  prestige  and  a  perennial  example  of  the  truth  that, 
high  above  the  internal  struggles  and  vicissitudes  of  the 
Monarchy,  stands,  or  may  stand,  the  all  but  indestructible 
influence  of  the  wearer  of  the  Crown. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE    STATE 

STRICTLY  speaking,  there  is  no  Hapsburg  State  save  in  the 
sense  that  a  Hapsburg  monarch  can,  without  serious  ex- 
aggeration, say  :  "  L'6tat  c'est  moi !  "  There  is  an  Austrian 
State,  a  Hungarian  State,  and  there  are  joint  Austro- 
Hungarian  Departments  of  State.  But  the  essential  things 
in  the  Hapsburg  polity  can  no  more  be  expressed  in 
terms  of  political  or  administrative  organization  than  the 
fighting  value  of  an  army  can  be  indicated  by  a  military 
handbook.  In  the  Dual  Monarchy  it  is  more  important 
to  ascertain  whence  impulses  proceed  or  weaknesses  derive 
than  to  catalogue  the  vertebras  of  the  body-politic.  A  list 
of  State  departments,  tribunals,  and  public  institutions  would 
shed  little  light  upon  the  spirit  that  animates  them  or  the 
manner  in  which  they  work.  Classification  needs  to  be 
broad  and  sparing  of  detail.  In  this  sense  it  may  be  said 
that  the  State  consists  of  the  Army,  the  Bureaucracy,  the 
Police,  and  the  Church,  for  these  are  the  main  instruments  of 
government.  The  people  exists  for  the  State  rather  than 
the  State  for  it ; — it  is  there  to  be  governed.  Parliament- 
ary institutions  through  which  "  the  will  of  the  people " 
is  supposed  to  be  expressed,  fulfil,  especially  in  Austria, 
functions  ranging  from  those  of  a  legislative  registry  office 
to  those  of  a  political  market-place.  They  rarely  serve  as 
a  means  of  imposing  popular  demands  upon  the  Government, 
though  they  are  sometimes  valuable  as  a  safety-valve.  On 
paper,  most  things  in  Austria-Hungary  are  regulated  by 

59 


60  THE  HAPSBURG   MONARCHY 

ordinance  or  by  law.  Spheres  of  administrative  and  political 
competence  are  accurately  defined,  disputed  points  being 
settled  by  administrative  tribunals.  But,  in  practice,  few 
institutions  discharge  precisely  the  functions  theoretically 
assigned  to  them.  Hence  in  some  cases  a  complication  and 
in  others  a  simplification  of  issues  which  are  in  theory  rigidly 
regulated  by  rule  and  compass.  The  influence  of  tradition, 
the  arbitrary  personal  element,  the  ingrained  belief  that 
human  motives  are  usually  other  than  they  are  professed 
to  be,  the  sense  of  authority  (mitigated  by  an  easy-going 
disposition),  contribute  to  form  an  atmosphere  that  Kiirn- 
berger  satirized  as  "  asiatic,"  and  which  is,  in  many  respects, 
semi-oriental.  To  comprehend  Austria  it  is  necessary  there- 
fore to  discard  preconceived  notions  and  prejudices,  and  to 
take  things  as  they  are.  Names  count  for  little,  but  the 
facts  behind  the  names  may  count  for  much.  This  is  the 
secret  of  the  Hapsburg  Monarchy,  a  secret  not  to  be  divined 
by  study  or  thought,  but  to  be  penetrated  by  dint  of 
experience. 

THE  ARMY 

The  institution  that  corresponds  most  nearly  to  its 
professed  purpose  is  the  Army.  "  In  deinem  Lager  ist 
Oesterreich,"  wrote  Grillparzer  of  Radetzky  in  the  days 
before  the  Dual  System  ;  and  though  the  re-establishment 
of  the  Hungarian  Constitution  in  1867  and  the  doctrine  of 
"  parity  "  between  Hungary  and  Austria  have  not  remained 
without  effect  upon  the  Army,  there  is  much  force  in  the 
perpetual  complaint  of  Magyar  separatists  that  the  Army 
is  a  school  of  unitary  sentiment  and  constant  corrective  of 
particularist  ambitions.  Above  all,  the  Army  is  a  nursery 
of  dynastic  feeling.  It  is  the  Imperial  and  Royal  Army, 
constitutionally  subject,  as  regards  organization  and  leader- 
ship, to  the  exclusive  control  of  the  Monarch.  Within  its 
framework,  politics  have  no  place  except  in  so  far  as  the 
military  spirit  naturally  tends  to  influence  Austro- Hungarian 
policy  in  an  aggressive  and  military  sense.  Yet  it  cannot 


THE  STATE  61 

fairly  be  said  that,  in  Austria- Hungary,  "  militarism  "  pre- 
sents the  objectionable  features  noticeable  in  Germany. 
Though  many  officers  are  drawn  from  the  nobility  and  even 
from  the  high  aristocracy,  the  bulk  of  the  officers'  corps  is 
recruited  from  the  middle  and  lower-middle  classes  and  is 
composed  of  men  of  slender  means.  The  noble  has,  in  such 
circumstances,  to  accommodate  himself  to  the  unpretentious 
life  of  his  brother  officers,  who  are,  as  a  rule,  hard-working, 
hard-living  men,  obliged,  in  their  turn,  by  the  special 
composition  of  their  regiments,  to  stand  in  close  personal 
relationship  to  their  men.  Of  the  excellent  fighting  qualities 
of  the  Austrian  soldier  it  is  superfluous  to  speak.  They 
have  been  shown  on  a  hundred  battlefields.  They  won  the 
unstinted  admiration  of  Napoleon  himself,  who  suffered  at 
Austrian  hands  at  Aspern  his  first  serious  defeat  in  the 
field  ;  but  it  would  be  idle  to  dogmatize  upon  the  value, 
as  a  fighting  machine,  of  an  army  that  has  not  been  seriously 
tested  for  nearly  half  a  century.  The  effective  value  of  the 
Austro- Hungarian  Army  must  always  depend  largely  upon 
the  quality  of  its  corps  of  officers,  and,  under  the  conditions 
of  modern  warfare,  upon  the  quality  of  the  non-commissioned 
officers  and  upon  the  nature  of  the  cause  to  be  fought  for. 
On  these  points  expert  opinion  alone  can  carry  weight.  As 
far  as  impartial  expert  opinion  is  available,  it  is  flattering  to 
the  quality  of  the  Austro- Hungarian  officer,  who  is,  as  a 
rule,  held  to  be  the  superior  of  the  average  German  officer. 
He  is  more  intelligent,  more  readily  adaptable  to  circum- 
stances, in  closer  touch  with  his  men,  less  given  to  dissipation, 
and  remarkably  free  from  arrogance.  He  is  a  good  fellow 
and  a  lovable  being.  Though  sometimes  of  apparently 
inferior  physique,  he  is  tough  and  wiry,  equally  accustomed 
to  stiff  climbing  in  the  Alps  and  to  dreary  marches  on  dusty 
or  snow-covered  plains.  Given  intelligence  and  unity  of 
direction  in  the  higher  regions  of  the  Army,  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  officer  should  do  himself  justice  in  case  of  war. 
He  did  himself  justice  during  the  partial  mobilizations  in 
1908—1909  and  1912-13,  when  the  General  Staff  showed 


62  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

both  intelligence  and  unity  of  direction.  Whether  the 
machine-like  smoothness  of  those  experiments  justifies  the 
positive  conclusion  that  the  Army  would  be  fully  equal  to 
its  task  in  war,  is  a  question  not  lightly  to  be  answered. 
Recent  manoeuvres  have  revealed  some  palpable  defects 
in  commissariat  arrangements  and  in  the  handling  of  large 
masses  of  troops  in  the  field  ;  the  artillery  is  stated  to  be 
below  the  highest  level  both  as  regards  materiel  and  men  ; 
the  non-commissioned  officer  is  believed  to  be  inferior  to  the 
task,  likely  to  devolve  upon  him  in  war,  of  replacing  tempo- 
rarily the  subaltern  or  even  the  company  officer.  There  is, 
besides,  considerable  shortage  of  non-commissioned  officers. 
Special  care  is  now  being  given  to  the  improvement  of  the 
non-commissioned  officers,  and  efforts  are  being  made  to 
induce  them  to  serve  long  enough  to  acquire  real  efficiency. 
Some  years  must  pass  before  these  efforts,  even  if  successful, 
can  bear  fruit,  and,  in  the  meantime,  the  Austro-Hungarian 
Army  will  be  at  a  corresponding  disadvantage. 

In  the  higher  grades  of  the  Army  the  conditions  are 
good.  Birth  alone  carries  few  or  no  privileges.  To  pass 
successfully  through  the  War  School  into  the  General  Staff 
a  man  must  have  brains,  aptitude  for  work,  and  fitness  for 
command.  Among  the  names  of  well-known  Austro- 
Hungarian  officers  few  have  an  aristocratic  sound,  especially 
if  it  be  remembered  that  a  patent  of  nobility,  as  indicated 
by  the  particle  "von,"  is  usually  granted  to  officers  after 
thirty-five  years  of  service.  There  exists  in  Austria  a 
military  nobility,  a  kind  of  Samurai  caste,  just  as  there 
exists  a  bureaucratic  nobility ;  many  families  of  modest 
fortune  have  been  "  military  "  for  generations,  sending  all  or 
most  of  their  sons  into  the  Army  and  Navy.  This  stock  of 
military  families  is  one  of  the  great  assets  of  the  dynasty. 
The  wearing  of  the  Emperor's  Coat  has  become  to  them  a 
second  nature,  and  they  are  not  only  intensely  "black  and 
yellow,"1  but  are  also  what  the  Emperor  Francis  called 
"  patriots  for  me."  Their  spirit  leavens  the  whole  military 

1  The  Austrian  colours. 


THE  STATE  63 

lump,  affects  their  comrades  devoid  of  family  traditions,  and 
penetrates  the  rank  and  file.      In  their  camp  is  "  Austria." 

Unitary  though  its  spirit  is,  in  the  main,  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  Army  is  divided  into  several  distinct  organizations, 
which  are  co-ordinated  for  action  in  war  by  the  Emperor, 
under  advice  from  the  military  ministers  and  the  Chief  of 
General  Staff.  These  organizations  are — (a)  the  Joint  or 
Common  Austro-Hungarian  Army  ;  (£)  the  Austrian  Defence 
Army  or  Landwehr ;  and  (c)  the  Hungarian  Defence  or 
Honved  Army.  In  addition  to  these  regular  organizations 
there  is  the  Landsturm  or  general  levy  of  the  able-bodied 
male  population  not  liable  for  service  in  the  Joint, 
Landwehr,  or  Honved  armies.  The  Landsturm  may, 
however,  be  regarded  as  the  supreme  reserve,  and 
scarcely  comes  into  consideration  as  an  active  military 
force  except  in  so  far  as  it  completes  the  general  military 
organization  of  the  people,  and  helps  to  maintain  the  idea 
of  liability  to  military  service  for  the  defence  of  the  common 
Monarchy. 

Austria- Hungary  thus  possesses  three  regular  armies. 
Neither  the  Austrian  Landwehr  nor  the  Hungarian  Honve"d 
are  Reserve  formations  in  the  ordinary  sense,  but  have,  like 
the  Joint  or  Common  Army,  their  own  levies  of  recruits,  their 
own  cadres,  and  their  own  reserve  formations.  Practically 
the  Landwehr  and  Honve'd  regiments  are  regiments  of  the 
Line,  not  quite  so  fully  equipped  or  quite  so  accurately 
trained,  perhaps,  as  the  regiments  of  the  Joint  Army,  but 
fit,  nevertheless,  to  take  their  place  alongside  of  the  joint 
troops  without  weakening  the  efficiency  of  the  Line  to  any- 
thing like  the  same  extent  as  the  German  Army  would  be 
weakened  were  it  ever  to  be  obliged  to  send  its  Landwehr 
troops  to  the  front.  Three  Military  Departments,  with  a 
large  measure  of  independence,  but  always  subject  to  the 
Emperor  and  the  General  Staff,  control  the  working  of  the 
three  armies,  each  Department^being  placed  under  a  separate 
Minister.  Thus  the  Joint  Austro-Hungarian  Army  is  ad- 
ministered by  the  Imperial  and  Royal  War  Office  under  the 


64  THE   HAPSBURG   MONARCHY 

Joint  Minister  of  War,  who  is  hierarchically  the  superior 
of  the  Chief  of  General  Staff,  and  is  responsible  in  theory  to 
the  Austrian  and  Hungarian  Delegations  which  sanction 
the  Joint  military  estimates.  The  Austrian  Landwehr  Army 
is  administered  by  the  Austrian  Department  for  National 
Defence  under  the  Austrian  Minister  for  National  Defence, 
who  is  responsible  to  the  Reichsrath.  Likewise  the 
Hungarian  Honve"d  Army  is  subject  to  the  Hungarian 
Honved  Minister,  who  is  responsible  to  the  Hungarian 
Parliament.  The  levy  of  recruits  for  the  three  armies  is 
granted  annually  by  the  Austrian  and  Hungarian  Parliaments 
according  to  population,  the  Austrian  Parliament  granting 
the  Austrian  quota  of  the  recruits  for  the  Joint  Army  and 
the  levy  for  the  Landwehr,  while  the  Hungarian  Parliament 
grants  the  recruits  for  the  Hungarian  quota  of  the  Joint 
Army  and  the  levy  for  the  Honve"d.  Save  as  regards  some 
features  of  military  judicial  procedure  in  Hungarian  regiments, 
German  is  used  throughout  the  Joint  Army  and  in  the 
Austrian  Landwehr  Army  as  the  official  language,  and  also 
as  the  language  of  command  and  service,  though  the 
"  regimental  languages  "  differ  according  to  the  racial  com- 
position of  the  various  regiments.  The  purely  Polish,  Czech, 
Ruthene,  and  Serbo-Croatian  regiments  are  instructed  in  their 
respective  languages,  though  commanded  in  German  ;  the 
mixed  regiments  are,  as  nearly  as  possible,  instructed  in 
the  several  languages  spoken  by  the  men,  minorities  above 
20  per  cent  of  the  whole  regiment  being  entitled  to  instruc- 
tion in  their  own  tongue.  In  the  six  or  seven  purely  Magyar 
regiments  of  the  Hungarian  part  of  the  Joint  Army,  Magyar 
is  the  language  of  instruction.  In  the  remainder  the  same 
principle  is  observed  as  in  the  ethnically  mixed  Austrian 
regiments  of  the  Joint  Army,  though  attempts  are  constantly 
made  artificially  to  increase  the  percentage  of  Magyar- 
speaking  recruits,  and  thus  to  make  the  Hungarian  regiments 
of  the  Joint  Army  instruments  of  magyarization.  In  the 
Honve"d  regiments  recruited  from  Hungary  proper,  Magyar 
is  the  official  language  and  the  language  of  command,  and 


THE  STATE  65 

also,  as  far  as  practicable,  the  language  of  instruction  ;  but 
in  the  Honve"d  regiments  recruited  from  Croatia-Slavonia, 
Magyar  gives  place  (under  the  Hungaro-Croatian  Settlement 
of  1868)  to  Serbo-Croatian. 

The  maintenance  of  unitary  sentiment  and  of  efficient 
organization  in  this  maze  of  languages  and  races  is  a 
dynastic  and  military  miracle — a  miracle  accomplished  by 
the  devotion  of  the  corps  of  officers  to  its  task  and  by 
the  intelligent  elasticity  of  its  members.  How  efficient  the 
army,  particularly  the  joint  army,  remains  as  an  element  of 
unity  may  be  judged  by  the  attacks  of  racial  extremists 
upon  it.  The  most  frequent  charge  against  it  is  that  it 
works  as  an  instrument  of  Germanization — a  charge  both 
well  and  ill  founded.  German  is  necessarily  the  language 
of  intercourse  throughout  the  Hapsburg  Monarchy,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  it  is  indispensable.  But  the  days  when 
German  was  used  as  the  one  official  language  are  past  and 
gone.  To-day  German  is  not  even  the  official  language  of 
the  Austrian  State,  though  by  force  of  circumstances  it 
remains  the  leading  language.  In  Hungary,  on  the  contrary, 
Magyar  is  the  official  State  language,  though  half  the 
population  is  non- Magyar.  A  glance  at  an  Austro- 
Hungarian  bank-note  reveals  the  veritable  characters  of  the 
Austrian  and  the  Hungarian  "  State  Ideas."  On  the 
Austrian  side  the  value  of  the  note  is  printed  in  German, 
Czech,  Polish,  Serbo  -  Croatian  (in  Latin  and  Cyrillic 
characters),  Ruthene  or  Little  Russian,  Slovene,  Italian, 
and  Rumanian  ;  on  the  Hungarian  side  the  value  is  given 
in  Magyar  alone,  although  Hungary  comprises  as  many 
"  nationalities "  as  Austria.  The  Austrian  "  State  Idea " 
thus  stands  for  equality  of  ethnic  right,  the  Hungarian,  or 
rather  the  Magyar,  "  State  Idea "  for  the  hegemony  of  a 
governing  race.  Against  this  Magyar  tendency,  which,  if 
restricted  to  the  Lands  of  the  Hungarian  Crown,  may 
be  historically  explicable  and  practically  defensible,  the 
influence  of  German,  working  through  the  joint  army,  is  a 
valuable  set-off.  Its  leading  position  in  the  Monarchy  as 

F 


66  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

a  whole  is  far  more  justifiable  than  the  exclusive  position 
of  the  Magyar  language  in  Hungary. 

When  the  non-Magyar  recruit  has  acquired  a  smattering 
of  the  Magyar  State  language,  he  has  learned  nothing  likely 
to  be  of  value  to  him  save  in  his  intercourse  with  the  local 
and  State  authorities.  When,  however,  the  non-German 
recruit  has  picked  up  a  smattering  of  German,  he  has 
acquired  the  means  of  making  himself  understood  through- 
out Central  Europe  and  in  a  great  part  of  the  civilized 
world.  The  Austrian  and  Hungarian  Slavs  recognize  the 
value  of  German  as  a  medium  of  intercourse,  and  use  it 
constantly  for  verbal  if  not  for  written  communications 
between  themselves.  Few  Austrian  Slavs  are  familiar 
enough  with  Czech,  Polish,  Slovene,  Little  Russian,  and 
Serbo-Croatian  to  use  all  these  idioms  with  equal  facility. 
They  therefore  fall  back  on  German  as  a  lingua  franca,  and 
can  have  no  interest  to  see  German  ousted  from  its  pre- 
eminent position,  however  much  and  however  justly  they 
resent  and  resist  the  Germanizing  spirit  that  used  to  prevail, 
and  still  lingers,  in  some  high  administrative  quarters. 

The  Austro-Hungarian  Army,  and  especially  the  joint 
army,  is  thus  a  symbol  of  unity,  a  school  of  unitary  sentiment, 
and  the  main  support  of  the  dynasty.  Although  the 
Emperor  Francis  Joseph  has  allowed  the  Hungarian 
regiments  of  the  joint  army  to  be  differentiated  from  the 
Austrian  regiments  in  some  details  of  uniform  and  facings, 
he  has  repeatedly  declared,  and  has  proved  by  his  action, 
that  he  will  never  allow  the  unitary  organization  of  the  army 
to  be  seriously  impaired.  In  one  of  his  most  famous 
enunciations,  the  Army  Order  dated  from  Chlopy  in  Galicia, 
on  September  16,  1903,  during  the  constitutional  crisis  in 
Hungary,  he  wrote :  "  The  better  founded  my  favourable 
judgment  of  the  military  value,  the  self-sacrificing  delight  in 
service,  and  the  single-minded  co-operation  of  all  parts  of  my 
total  Defensive  Forces,  the  more  must  and  will  I  hold  fast 
to  their  existing  and  well-tried  organizations.  My  Army,  in 
particular,  must  know  that  I  will  never  relinquish  the  rights 


THE  STATE  67 

and  privileges  guaranteed  to  its  supreme  War-Lord — my 
Army,  whose  stout  bonds  of  union  are  threatened  by  one- 
sided aspirations  proceeding  from  misapprehension  of  the 
exalted  mission  the  Army  has  to  fulfil  for  the  weal  of  both 
States  of  the  Monarchy.  Joint  and  unitary  as  it  is  shall  my 
Army  remain,  the  strong  power  to  defend  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  Monarchy  against  every  foe.  True  to  its  oath, 
my  whole  Defensive  Force  will  continue  to  tread  the  path  of 
earnest  fulfilment  of  duty,  permeated  by  that  spirit  of  union 
and  harmony  which  respects  every  national  characteristic 
and  solves  all  antagonisms  by  utilizing  the  special  qualities  of 
each  race  for  the  welfare  of  the  great  whole."  The  storm  of 
protest  which  this  Army  Order  raised  among  the  Magyars 
— then  engaged  in  an  assault  upon  the  constitutional  military 
prerogatives  of  the  Crown — alters  nothing  in  its  fundamental 
significance  as  a  statement  of  the  dynastic  standpoint. 
Magyar  opposition,  indeed,  took  rather  the  form  of  protests 
against  the  absence  of  a  ministerial  counter-signature  to  the 
Army  Order,  and  against  expressions  such  as  "my  total 
Defensive  Forces "  (Gesamtwehrmacht\  than  against  the 
Monarch's  resolve  to  maintain  military  unity  at  all  costs  ; 
and,  in  reply  to  the  protests,  the  Crown  addressed  a 
Rescript  to  the  Hungarian  Premier  declaring  that  just 
as  he  had  been  careful  to  fulfil  the  obligations  laid 
down  in  the  Hungarian  Statute  XII.  of  1867,  so  "I  am 
determined  to  maintain  undiminished  my  rights  and  to 
transmit  them  untouched  to  my  successors."  Of  these 
rights,  as  defined  by  Clause  1 1  of  that  Statute,  mention  has 
been  made  in  the  previous  chapter.1  The  only  change  in 
regard  to  their  interpretation  which  the  Monarch  has  ever 
sanctioned,  was  contained  in  the  programme  drawn  up  in 
October  1903  by  a  Hungarian  commission  of  nine  members 
and  accepted  by  the  Crown  as  the  basis  for  the  formation  of 
the  Tisza  Cabinet  of  that  year.  This  programme,  known  in 
Hungarian  Constitutional  history  as  the  "  Programme  of  the 
Nine,"  included  the  introduction  of  a  military  penal  code 

1  Cf.  pp.  17-20. 


68  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

providing  for  the  use  of  the  Magyar  language  by  courts- 
martial  in  Hungarian  regiments  ;  the  transfer  to  Hungarian 
regiments  of  officers  of  Hungarian  nationality  but  serving  in 
non-Hungarian  regiments  ;  the  establishment  of  Hungarian 
Cadet  schools  ;  and,  in  regard  to  the  Constitutional  military 
prerogatives  of  the  Crown,  the  recognition  of  the  Monarch's 
right  to  fix  the  language  of  command  and  service  in  the 
Hungarian  regiments.  The  programme  added,  however : 
"  The  political  responsibility  of  the  Cabinet  extends  to  this 
act  as  to  every  act  of  the  Crown,  and  the  lawful  influence  of 
Parliament  remains  intact  in  this  respect  also  as  in  respect 
of  every  constitutional  right.  This  condition  of  things  can 
be  changed  by  legislation,  that  is  to  say,  by  the  Crown  and 
Parliament  jointly.  While  emphasizing  the  rights  of  the 
country,  the  Liberal  (ministerial)  Party  does  not  raise  the 
question  of  the  Magyar  language  of  command  and  service, 
because  weighty  political  reasons  affecting  great  interests  of 
the  nation  make  it  appear  undesirable  to  do  so." 

Though  not  a  law  this  "  Programme  of  the  Nine "  is 
regarded  in  Hungary  as  fixing  the  interpretation  of  the 
word  "constitutional"  in  Clause  1 1  of  Statute  XII.  of  1867. 
Whereas  that  word  undoubtedly  meant,  in  the  eyes  of 
Deak  and  Andrassy,  that  the  right  of  the  Monarch  to 
settle  everything  relating  to  the  leadership,  command,  and 
inner  organization  of  the  Army  was  "  constitutional "  in 
the  sense  of  being  recognized  by  the  Constitution,  the 
"  Programme  of  the  Nine "  makes  it  "  constitutional "  in 
the  sense  that  the  Cabinet  is  responsible  for  all  acts  of  the 
Monarch  undertaken  in  virtue  of  this  right,  and  that  "  law- 
ful "  Parliamentary  influence  exists  also  in  regard  to  such 
acts.  This  is  the  only  positive  constitutional  outcome  of 
the  conflict  between  the  Magyars  and  the  Crown  that  lasted 
from  the  end  of  1902  until  April  1906,  since  the  demand 
for  the  Magyar  language  of  command  which  figured  so 
prominently  in  the  conflict  was  omitted  from  the  settlement 
of  April  8,  1906,  between  the  Magyar  Coalition  Leaders 
and  the  Crown.  It  is,  however,  a  result  eloquent  of  the 


THE  STATE  69 

Magyar  tendency  to  undermine  the  unity  both  of  the  Army 
and  of  the  Monarchy  that  may  presently  involve  the  Magyars 
in  serious  and  not  unmerited  misfortunes.  The  Magyar 
argument  that  the  attempts  to  differentiate  the  "  Hungarian 
army "  from  the  Austrian  army  are  legitimate  inasmuch 
as  Clause  1 1  of  Law  XII.  recognizes  the  existence  of  a 
"  Hungarian  army  as  an  integral  part  of  the  whole  army,"  is 
specious.  Since  1526,  when  Hungary  was  crushed  by  the 
Turks  at  Mohacs,  there  has  never  existed  a  "  Hungarian 
army "  save  during  the  revolution  of  1 848—49,  when  the 
Kossuthist  forces  were  fighting  against  Austria.  The  words 
"Hungarian  army"  employed  in  the  Statute  of  1867  are 
an  echo  of  the  expression  exercitus  hungaricus  employed 
in  the  Hungarian  Law  I.  of  1802,  in  which  it  was  used  in 
the  sense  of  "  Hungarian  Regiments  "  or  legiones.  In  the 
Hungarian  Chamber  in  1 868  Deak  insisted  that  though  the 
Law  of  1802  and  a  Law  of  1846  refer  in  this  sense  to  a 
"  Hungarian  army"  they  make  no  allusion  to  it  as  a  separate 
or  independent  force  ;  and  he  added,  "  I  remind  the  members 
of  the  House  that  an  independent  and  special  Hungarian 
army  came  into  existence  in  1848  when  our  troops  were 
not  fighting  in  the  sense  of  the  Pragmatic  Sanction  by  the 
side  of  His  Majesty's  troops,  but  against  them  ;  and,  if  any 
one  cares  to  inquire  why  the  Estates  of  the  Realm  did  not 
press  for  a  separate  and  independent  army,  he  would  probably 
find  that  they  omitted  to  do  so  because  they  were  convinced 
that  it  would  have  been  impossible  to  defend  either  the 
Fatherland,  or  the  Throne,  or  the  other  Lands  of  His 
Majesty  as  required  by  the  Pragmatic  Sanction,  had  there 
been  two  separate,  special,  and  independent  armies."  Dedk, 
who  well  knew  that  the  Settlement  of  1867  embodied  the 
most  generous  conditions  Hungary  could  hope  to  obtain 
without  risking  her  very  existence,  realized  the  danger  of 
provoking  in  Austria  and  in  the  mind  of  the  Monarch  a 
reaction  against  the  constitutional  liberties  then  so  recently 
restored.  The  developments  of  the  last  ten  years,  and  the 
growth  in  Austria  of  a  feeling  that  accounts  will  sooner  or 


70  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

later  have  to  be  settled  afresh  with  the  Magyars,  have  shown 
how  far-sighted  was  Deak's  view  of  the  position  of  Hungary, 
and  how  clear  his  perception  of  the  inevitable  consequences  of 
attempts  to  encroach  upon  the  military  rights  of  the  Crown.1 

The  danger  involved  in  Magyar  attacks  upon  the 
unitary  character  of  the  joint  Army  is  therefore  rather  a 
danger  for  the  Magyars  themselves  than  for  the  institution 
they  have  sought  to  undermine.  The  Austro- Hungarian 
Army  is  likely  to  remain,  next  to  the  Crown,  the  most 
popular  and  powerful  prop  of  the  State.  It  lends  a  helping 
hand  in  cases  of  disaster,  exercises  an  educational  influence 
on  the  bulk  of  the  population,  and  is  rarely  guilty  of  brutality 
even  in  the  repression  of  disorder.  The  spirit  in  which  it  is 
administered  is,  on  the  whole,  tolerant  and  non-aggressive — 
at  its  best  (to  repeat  the  words  of  the  Chlopy  Army  Order) 
a  spirit  "which  respects  every  national  characteristic  and 
solves  all  antagonisms  by  utilizing  the  special  qualities  of 
every  race  for  the  welfare  of  the  great  whole." 

It  stands  to  reason  that  this  high  spirit  cannot  be 
evinced  in  every  detail  of  military  organization,  nor  in 
the  working  of  all  military  departments.  Red  tape  and 
mandarinism,  to  which  Austro-Hungarian  officials  are  more 
prone  than  those  of  any  Continental  people  except,  perhaps, 
the  Russian  tchinovniks,  flourish  exceedingly  in  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  War  Office,  the  Ministries  for  National  Defence, 
and  in  the  Commands  of  the  various  Army  Corps.  But,  in 
the  Army,  the  personal  control  of  the  Monarch,  or  of  the 
Archdukes  representing  him,  sometimes  places  a  check  upon 
officialism,  whereas  in  a  civilian  bureaucracy  the  wheels 
of  the  bureaucratic  machine  would  go  on  unhindered  in 
crushing  the  life  and  the  individuality  out  of  men.  One 
typical  case  was  that  of  General  Galgotzy,  a  splendid  old 

1  As  a  consequence  of  the  recent  Balkan  wars  and  of  the  encouragement 
derived  from  them  by  the  Austrian  and  Hungarian  Slavs,  the  Magyars  and  the 
Austrian-Germans  have  tended  to  draw  nearer  each  other  for  the  purpose  of 
defending  the  Dual  System  against  Slav  attack  ;  but  it  is  an  open  question  whether 
this  rapprochement  will  survive  the  new  military  demands  which  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  Army  authorities  are  about  to  make  upon  the  two  Parliaments. 


THE  STATE  71 

soldier  who  was  for  many  years  the  idol  of  the  army  and 
whose  name  recurs  in  a  hundred  anecdotes.  During  the 
occupation  of  Bosnia-Herzegovina  a  road  had  to  be  built 
in  haste.  The  work  was  difficult,  funds  were  short,  and 
time  pressed.  Galgotzy  undertook  the  work  and  did  it  for 
a  trifling  sum,  thanks  to  the  devotion  of  his  men.  Then 
he  reported :  "  Road  built.  Twenty  thousand  florins 
received,  twenty  thousand  florins  spent,  remains  nothing. 
Galgotzy."  Shocked  by  so  terse  a  statement,  the  military 
audit  officials  demanded  of  Galgotzy  a  detailed  account  of 
florin  and  kreutzer,  with  vouchers.  Galgotzy  ignored  the 
demand,  which  was  presently  repeated  in  peremptory  tone. 
Then  he  rejoined :  "  Twenty  thousand  florins  received, 
twenty  thousand  florins  spent.  Whoever  doubts  it,  is  an 
ass."  Thereupon  the  chief  audit  official  solemnly  drew  the 
Emperor's  attention  to  Galgotzy's  irreverent  reply  and 
suggested  a  reprimand.  The  Emperor  blandly  inquired, 
"  Do  you  then  doubt  it  ?  " 

To  his  best  officers  the  Emperor  has  usually  stood  in 
the  relationship  of  an  elder  to  younger  comrades,  and  has 
generally,  though  not  invariably,  given  them  loyal  support. 
He  has  rewarded  their  services,  comforted  them  in  mis- 
fortune, paid  their  debts  in  some  instances,  and  "  fathered  " 
them  with  affectionate  solicitude.  But  there  have  been 
exceptions.  The  case  of  Benedek,  the  commander  defeated 
at  Sadowa,  affords  tragic  proof  that  the  real  or  supposed 
interests  of  the  dynasty  are  apt  to  take  precedence  of  all 
other  considerations. 

After  the  death  of  Radetzky,  Benedek  was  the  ablest 
and  most  popular  general  in  the  army  ;  and  when,  in  1866, 
an  Italian  attack  threatened  from  the  South  and  a  Prussian 
attack  from  the  North,  Benedek  was  placed,  against  his  will, 
in  command  of  the  Northern  army,  because,  it  was  argued, 
the  popularity  of  his  name  would  be  worth  an  additional 
army  corps.  The  real  reason  for  the  appointment  was  another. 
Defeat  at  the  hands  of  Prussia  was  foreseen,  or  at  least  appre- 
hended, and  it  was  thought  undesirable  that  the  Archduke 


72  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

Albert,  the  only  other  general  of  sufficient  standing,  should  be 
exposed  to  discomfiture.  Benedek  was  called  from  Verona 
and  told  of  his  appointment  to  the  Bohemian  command. 
He  protested  and  refused  it,  because,  he  said,  he  knew  every 
stick  and  stone  in  Lombardy,  but  nothing  whatever  of 
Bohemia,  not  even  the  course  of  the  Elbe.  He  prepared  to 
return  South  but  was  roused  at  night  by  the  Emperor's  aide- 
de-camp  and  urged  to  make  the  sacrifice  for  the  dynasty  which 
could  not  afford  to  have  a  member  of  the  Imperial  House 
beaten  in  the  field.  Benedek  bowed  to  this  appeal,  handed 
over  to  the  Archduke  Albert  the  victory  he  had  organized 
in  the  South,  and  went  to  crown  his  brilliant  career  by 
discomfiture  at  Sadowa.  He  stipulated  only  that  he  should 
have  a  free  hand  in  Bohemia.  This  was  granted  him  verbally 
and  refused  him  in  practice,  for  his  plan  of  campaign  was 
constantly  interfered  with  by  the  Imperial  Council  of  War 
sitting  in  Vienna.  After  defeat  he  was  made  the  object  of 
public  odium.  His  wish  to  report  in  person  to  the  Emperor 
upon  the  vicissitudes  of  the  campaign  was  never  granted. 
The  Archduke  Albert,  returning  victorious  from  Lombardy, 
appealed  to  him  not  to  reply  to  public  attacks  nor  to 
attempt  any  kind  of  self-justification.  Benedek  pledged  his 
word  in  writing  (November  19,  1866)  to  bear  all  in  silence 
— and  read  on  the  following  December  8,  in  the  official 
Wiener  Zeitung,  an  article  belittling  his  former  services  and 
declaring  that  the  loss  of  Imperial  confidence,  the  destruc- 
tion of  his  military  reputation  in  the  eyes  of  his  contempo- 
raries and  of  posterity,  the  knowledge  of  the  immeasurable 
disaster  which  the  Army,  and,  through  his  defeat,  the  whole 
Monarchy,  had  suffered  under  his  leadership,  must  be  for 
him  a  severer  punishment  than  condemnation  by  court- 
martial  could  have  been  !  The  responsibility  for  this  article 
seems  to  have  lain  between  the  Archduke  Albert  himself  and 
the  War  Minister,  General  John,  both  of  whom  corrected 
the  proof-sheets.  In  his  will,  Benedek  described  their 
conduct  as  "  surpassing  my  ideas  of  right,  justice,  and 
respectability.  I  have  taken  this  also  in  silence,"  he  added, 


THE  STATE  73 

"  and  have,  with  philosophy  and  self-denial,  borne  for  seven 
years  my  hard  soldier's  lot.  I  think  I  am  lucky  that,  in 
spite  of  all,  I  have  not  lost  my  reason  and  that  I  bear  no 
one  a  grudge.  I  have  done  with  myself  and  with  the  world 
and  have  a  completely  clear  conscience — only,  all  the  poetry 
of  my  soldier's  life  has  been  lost  in  the  process."  And,  as 
a  sign  of  his  lost  "  soldier's  poetry,"  Benedek  forbade  the 
commander  of  the  garrison  of  Gratz  to  render  any  kind  of 
military  honours  to  his  remains. 

Admiral  Tegetthoff,  the  victor  of  Lissa,  was  treated  with 
scarcely  more  regard  than  the  unfortunate  Benedek.  For 
some  mysterious  reason  he  was  removed  from  the  command 
of  the  Fleet  within  a  few  weeks  of  his  victory,  and  was  sent 
into  a  kind  of  exile  on  the  pretext  that  he  needed  to  study 
foreign  navies.  The  mystery  that  surrounds  the  battle  of 
Lissa  may  perhaps  one  day  be  cleared  up,  and  it  may 
become  known  whether  Tegetthoff  was  punished  because  of 
a  petty  difference  with  audit  officials  over  the  cost  of  a 
banquet  given  to  celebrate  the  victory,  or  because  he  had 
taken  too  seriously  a  part  assigned  to  him  in  an  international 
tragi-comedy.  One  thing  may  be  affirmed  with  certainty — 
that  the  contemporary  records  and  published  versions  of  the 
circumstances  attending  the  battle  of  Lissa  are  not  worthy 
of  entire  confidence.  No  one  who  knows  approximately 
the  truth  concerning  the  circumstances  that  preceded  and 
followed  the  annexation  of  Bosnia-Herzegovina,  and  is  aware 
how  carefully  the  truth  was  hidden  from  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  public  by  the  press  under  official  influence,  will 
readily  accept  as  authentic  any  contemporary  Austrian 
official  version  of  a  given  occurrence. 

THE  BUREAUCRACY 

In  every  organized  State  the  question  of  the  relation- 
ship between  the  State  officials  and  the  public  which 
supports  them  is  acquiring  increasing  importance,  but 
nowhere  is  it  so  urgent  as  in  the  Hapsburg  Monarchy. 


74  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

Though  the  Monarch  is  imbued  with  a  sense  of  his  divinely 
constituted  Imperial  authority  and  of  his  dynastic  mission, 
his  rule  over  matters  coming  under  his  immediate  control 
is  just  and  clement  when  compared  with  the  anonymous 
tyranny  exercised  through  a  dozen  Departments  and  a 
hundred  divisions  of  State  by  thousands  of  hierarchical 
potentates.  Experience  of  and  reflection  upon  the  nature 
of  bureaucratic  rule  in  Austria  and  other  countries  leads  to 
the  conclusion  that  it  possesses  four  main  characteristics  : 
The  sense  of  authority  and  of  superiority  over  those  who 
are  administered  or  governed,  a  sense  formerly  existing  in 
the  shape  of  a  corporate  bureaucratic  consciousness,  but  now 
atomized  and  individualized  ;  the  dislike  of  responsibility, 
and,  consequently,  a  disposition  to  clothe  administrative 
action  in  elusive  forms  elaborated  by  the  practice  of  genera- 
tions ;  the  hierarchical  spirit  which  renders  every  official  of 
a  certain  rank  an  object  of  respect  for  officials  of  lower  rank 
and  makes  the  attainment  of  higher  rank  the  main  object 
of  bureaucratic  endeavour  ;  and  the  tendency  to  resent,  as  a 
sort  of  lese-majeste,  all  attempts  to  criticize  the  working,  to 
curtail  the  power,  or  to  reform  the  organization  of  the 
bureaucracy  itself.  This  last-named  characteristic  is  per- 
haps the  strongest  tie  between  Austrian  officials  to-day.  A 
curious  instance  may  be  cited.  Not  long  ago  the  manager 
of  a  Court  Theatre  wished  to  revive  a  comedy  by  a  well- 
known  Austrian-German  author  which  one  of  his  predecessors 
had  produced  with  success.  On  being  consulted,  the  author 
expressed  doubt  whether  the  Court  authorities  would  sanction 
the  revival,  since  a  chapter  in  one  of  his  subsequent  non- 
dramatic  works  had  been  suppressed  by  the  public  prosecutor 
on  the  plea  that  it  contained  passages  offensive  to  the 
dynasty.  The  manager,  on  inquiry,  ascertained  that  this 
doubt  was  unfounded  and  that  neither  the  Court  authorities 
nor  the  Emperor  had  any  objection  to  the  revival  of  the 
comedy.  He  therefore  decided  to  revive  it,  but  received  a 
hint  that  it  would  be  well  to  consult  the  archives  of  the 
theatre  before  taking  further  steps.  In  the  archives  he 


THE  STATE  75 

discovered  a  letter  from  a  former  Austrian  Premier,  an 
official,  to  the  previous  manager  of  the  theatre  asking  that 
no  further  plays  by  that  author  might  be  produced  at  the 
Court  Theatre,  in  view  of  the  strictures  which  the  author 
had  passed  upon  the  bureaucracy.  The  manager  thereupon 
applied  to  the  Premier  of  the  day,  another  official,  for  a 
removal  of  the  ban,  but  was  informed  that  nothing  could 
be  done.  Ferdinand  Kiirnberger,  whose  collected  essays 
are  an  indispensable  guide  to  the  comprehension  of  things 
Austrian,  devoted  one  of  his  most  brilliant  satires  to  the 
illustration  of  this  bureaucratic  spirit  It  was  inspired  by 
the  difficulty  which  he  and  an  ex-officer  named  Schoffel 
experienced  in  bringing  to  justice  sundry  corrupt  officials 
who  were  attempting  to  sell  to  Jewish  speculators  the 
girdle  of  meadow  and  forest  that  renders  the  environs 
of  Vienna  the  most  beautiful  of  any  European  capital. 
Schoffel  and  Kiirnberger  saved  the  forest  girdle,  and  a 
modest  monument  at  Modling  bears  witness  to  their  merits. 
Kiirnberger's  satire  "  Dishonesty  is  the  Best  Policy  " 1  deals 
with  the  terror  of  a  thieving  "  Moroccan "  official  whose 
depredations  in  the  forests  of  his  master  had  been  dis- 
covered. By  a  Prankish  friend  the  thief  was  encouraged 
to  redouble  his  depredations  and  at  the  same  time  to 
have  himself  and  the  official  caste  publicly  denounced  in 
the  "  Moroccan  "  press.  This  having  been  done,  the  thief 
flourished  exceedingly,  and  escaped  punishment  because  the 
fact  that  an  official  had  been  publicly  denounced  was  enough 
to  ensure  him  the  protection  of  his  fellow-officials,  all  of 
whom  swore  by  the  mystic  formula,  Justament  not ! 

The  justament  spirit,  and  what  is  known  as  Justament- 
politik,  play  a  large  part  in  Austrian  affairs.  It  is  an  inverted 
spirit  of  authority,  a  consciousness  of  power  to  obstruct 
that  may  perhaps  be  rendered  in  English  by  the  phrase, 
"  You  just  shan't ! "  The  Bureaucracy  has  immense  powers 
of  obstruction,  and  uses  them  when  its  authority  is  ignored 
or  its  importance  questioned.  Otherwise  it  is  inoffensive,  or 

1  Siegelringe>  original  edition,  p.  271,  "  Dieb-Sein  wahrt  am  langsten." 


76  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

at  least  non-aggressive.  Austrian  officials  are,  as  a  rule, 
well-educated,  well-mannered  men  of  easy  disposition  and 
devoid  of  stiffness.  They  are  often  willing  to  show  the 
private  citizen  a  short-cut  through  a  law  or  a  way  round 
an  apparently  insuperable  obstacle.  But  the  private  citizen 
must  recognize,  at  least  by  implication,  their  power  and 
authority.  He  must,  so  to  speak,  sue  in  forma  pauperis  for 
their  help,  without  insistence  upon  what  he  may  consider  his 
rights.  Under  the  "architectural  police"  regulations  in 
Austria  it  is,  for  instance,  technically  impossible  to  build  a 
theatre  so  as  to  make  it  a  profitable  undertaking.  Yet  new 
theatres  are  built  and  flourish,  while  old  theatres  that  violate 
the  main  principles  of  the  regulations  are  maintained.  The 
good-natured  authorities  are  willing  to  close  one  eye  to 
illegalities,  on  the  tacit  understanding  that  he  who  profits  by 
such  indulgence  will  not  be  recalcitrant  should  the  convenience 
of  the  State  require  pliancy  on  his  part.  The  manager  of  a 
theatre  who  should  refuse  to  remove  from  the  playbill  a  play 
displeasing  to  the  authorities,  or  should  insist  upon  the  cir- 
cumstance that  the  play  had  been  authorized  by  the  censor, 
might  find  the  sanitary  arrangements  of  his  theatre  declared 
to  be  insufficient  by  a  special  commission,  or  the  condition 
of  the  ceiling  perilous,  or  the  fire  exits  much  too  narrow.  If 
he  were  wise  he  would  speedily  understand  the  impropriety 
of  the  play.  A  singular  case  occurred  some  three  years  ago 
in  connexion  with  a  military  "  skit "  written  by  an  ex-officer 
of  literary  proclivities.  It  was  produced,  with  the  consent 
of  the  censor,  and  played  nineteen  times,  not  only  without 
objection  but  to  the  great  amusement  of  the  civilian  and 
military  public.  Then  some  officious  prig  discovered  that 
one  of  the  personages  was  a  caricature  of  an  important 
military  dignitary.  The  manager,  who  was  bound  by  con- 
tract to  the  author,  failed  to  withdraw  the  play  when  gently 
pressed  to  do  so  by  the  authorities.  He  was  therefore 
summoned  to  the  police  headquarters  and  recommended  to 
announce  that  the  chief  actor  was  ill ;  otherwise,  he  was 
reminded,  his  licence,  which  had  only  been  granted  for 


THE  STATE  77 

musical  comedy,  would  need  revision.  Too  old  a  hand  to 
think  of  resistance,  the  manager  prepared  to  capitulate,  but 
the  Stage  Society  and  the  Authors'  Society  intervened,  and 
unkindly  threatened  to  boycott  him  if  he  gave  way.  He 
therefore  begged  the  authorities  to  prohibit  the  play  ;  but 
they,  ever  chary  of  incurring  responsibility,  answered  that  he 
must  petition  for  a  prohibition.  The  manager  demurred, 
and  offered  to  make  "  cuts "  and  other  alterations.  The 
authorities  claimed  that  before  this  offer  could  be  accepted 
the  Auxiliary  Council  of  the  censorship  must  be  consulted. 
The  Council  thereupon  saved  the  situation  by  refusing  to 
sanction  the  alterations  and  by  forbidding  a  harmless  farce 
which  the  censor  had  originally  sanctioned. 

Klirnberger  would  call  this  state  of  things  "  Asiatic."  It 
is  simpler  to  call  it  bureaucratically  Austrian.  The  bureau- 
cracy feels  itself  to  be  the  State  ;  and,  for  the  public  at 
large,  it  is  the  State.  So  instinctively  is  this  truth  recog- 
nized that  the  "  race  struggle  "  in  Austria,  of  which  so  much 
has  been  said  and  written,  is  largely  a  struggle  for  bureau- 
cratic appointments.  Germans  and  Czechs  have  striven  for 
years  to  increase  on  the  one  hand  and  defend  on  the  other 
their  patrimony  of  official  positions.  The  essence  of  the 
language  struggle  is  that  it  is  a  struggle  for  bureaucratic 
influence.  Similarly,  the  demands  for  new  Universities  or 
High  Schools  put  forward  by  Czechs,  Ruthenes,  Slovenes, 
and  Italians  but  resisted  by  the  Germans,  Poles,  or  other 
races,  as  the  case  may  be,  are  demands  for  the  creation  of  new 
machines  to  turn  out  potential  officials  whom  the  political 
influence  of  Parliamentary  parties  may  then  be  trusted  to 
hoist  into  bureaucratic  appointments.  In  the  Austrian  Parlia- 
ment the  Government,  which  consists  mainly  of  officials, 
sometimes  purchases  the  support  of  political  leaders  by  giving 
State  appointments  to  their  kindred  or  proteges,  or  by  pro- 
moting proteges  already  appointed.  One  hand  washes  the 
other,  and  service  is  rendered  for  service.  On  occasion  the 
votes  of  a  whole  party  can  be  bought  by  the  appointment 
of  one  of  its  prominent  members  to  a  permanent  Under- 


78  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

Secretaryship  in  a  Department  of  State.  Once  appointed,  he 
is  able  to  facilitate  the  appointment  of  other  officials  of  his 
own  race  or  party.  Each  position  thus  conquered  forms 
part  of  the  political  patrimony  of  the  race  or  party  by 
whom  it  has  been  secured,  and  is  defended  stoutly  against 
attack.  Appointments  are  thus  multiplied  exceedingly — 
to  the  cost  of  the  taxpayer  and  to  the  complication  of 
public  business. 

Joseph  II.,  who  made  a  gallant  attempt  to  reform  and 
simplify  the  bureaucracy,  wrote  in  his  memorandum  of  1765 
on  the  state  of  the  Monarchy :  "  II  arrive  que  personne  ne 
travaille,  et  qu'entre  cent  rames  de  papier  qui  se  consument 
bien  en  huit  jours  dans  les  dicasteres  de  Vienne,  il  n'y  a  pas 
quatre  feuillets  d'esprit,  ou  de  choses  nouvelles  ou  de  propres 
id£es.  Le  pre"ambule,  une  longue  recapitulation,  et  deux  mots 
d'opinion  composent  nos  re'fe'rats,  qui  se  r£duisent  toujours  a 
peu  pres  au  me'me." l  Though  it  would  be  untrue  and  unjust 
to  say  that  nowadays  personne  ne  travaille,  it  would  be  easy 
to  prove  that  of  every  hundred  reams  of  paper  consumed  in 
the  Austrian  Departments  of  State,  ninety  are  wasted  in 
superfluities.  Red  tape  exists  the  world  over,  but  the  extent 
to  which  it  impedes  freedom  of  movement  in  the  Hapsburg 
Monarchy  should  be  a  warning  to  all  countries  that  lightly 
propose  to  add  new  wheels  to  the  bureaucratic  machine. 
Professor  Joseph  Redlich,  a  prominent  member  of  the 
Reichsrath  and  a  competent  critic  of  the  Austrian  adminis- 
trative system,  seems  indeed  to  agree  with  Joseph  II.  More 
work  must  be  done,  he  writes.2  Our  officials  in  Vienna  do 
not  work  enough.  There  are  Departments  in  which  one  is 
astonished  at  the  number  of  officials,  and  asks  what  all  these 
people  do.  It  is,  for  instance,  incomprehensible  why  an 
Audit  Office  should  need  so  many  hands  as  are  to  be  found 
in  our  audit  offices.  What  is  called  "  bureaucratism  "  pro- 
ceeds from  this  plethora.  Bureaucratism  is  form  without 

1  Maria  Theresia  und  Joseph  II. ,  herausgegeben    von   Alfred    Ritter   von 
Arneth.     Vienna,  1868. 

2  Zustand  und  Reform  der  osterreichischen  Verwaltung,  pp.  35-37. 


THE  STATE  79 

substance,  appearance  without  reality,  careful  maintenance 
of  appearances  coupled  with  indifference  towards  results. 
The  multiplication  of  officials  is  naturally  a  consequence  of 
the  multiplication  of  departments  and  authorities.  Let  me, 
continues  Professor  Redlich,  give  an  instance  taken  from 
practical  life.  What  happens  in  Austria  when  the  caretaker 
in  an  Industrial  Education  Extension  School  asks  the  school- 
master for  a  special  remuneration  of  twenty  Kronen  (i  6s.  8d.)  ? 
The  master  transmits  the  request  with  a  favourable  note 
to  the  Provincial  Schools  Council.  There  the  request  is 
registered  and  submitted  to  a  superior  official  of  the  audit 
department  of  the  Council.  This  department  emits  an 
opinion,  on  the  basis  of  which  the  Provincial  Council  reports 
to  the  Ministry  of  Public  Works,  after  the  report  has  been 
duly  drawn  up,  approved,  and  revised  by  three  separate 
officials.  In  the  Ministry  the  report  is  registered  and 
numbered,  and  is  handed  by  the  chief  of  a  department  to 
a  special  official  for  consideration,  and  eventually  an  opinion 
is  obtained  from  the  audit  department  of  the  Ministry.  An 
understanding  with  the  Ministry  of  Finance  may  also  be 
requisite.  In  this  case  the  request  is  sent  to  the  Finance 
Ministry,  accompanied  by  a  ministerial  document  from  the 
Ministry  of  Public  Works.  In  the  Finance  Ministry  this 
document  is  reported  upon,  approved  by  one  official,  and 
revised  by  his  superior,  after  having  been  registered,  numbered, 
fair-copied,  collated,  and  transmitted  from  one  department  to 
another.  Finally  a  decision  is  taken,  communicated  to  the 
Ministry  for  Public  Works,  which  communicates  it  to  the 
Provincial  Schools  Council,  where  it  is  again  registered  and 
reported  upon.  Ultimately  the  Provincial  Council  informs 
the  master  of  the  school  that  the  special  remuneration  for 
the  caretaker  cannot  be  granted  ! 

Lest  it  be  imagined  that  this  example  is  exaggerated, 
the  procedure  in  another  instance  may  be  given.  A  doctor 
wishes  to  found  a  Sanatorium  and  applies  for  a  licence.  The 
application  goes  to  the  Juridical  Department,  and  after  due 
registration,  examination,  fair-copying,  approval,  and  revision 


8o  THE   HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

is  transmitted  thence  to  the  technical  departments,  of  which 
there  are  two.  These  departments  deal  with  it  after  the 
same  fashion,  and  ultimately  send  it  back,  with  their 
opinions,  to  the  Juridical  Department  which  orders  a  local 
investigation.  The  local  investigation  having  been  made, 
the  report  upon  it  goes  once  more  to  the  Juridical  Depart- 
ment and  is  by  it  again  submitted,  with  due  observance  of 
bureaucratic  procedure,  to  the  two  technical  departments. 
Here  it  is  subjected  to  expert  examination,  and  unless — 
which  is  rarely  the  case — the  first  local  investigation  is  con- 
sidered to  have  been  exhaustive,  the  Juridical  Department  is 
advised  by  the  technical  departments  to  instruct  the  local 
authorities  to  make  a  supplementary  local  investigation,  the 
report  on  which  is  sent  by  the  local  authorities  back  to  the 
Juridical  Department  and  by  the  latter  to  the  two  technical 
departments.  Then,  if  no  objection  has  been  discovered, 
the  licence  may  be  granted  and  its  happy  possessor  may 
begin  his  struggle  with  the  provincial  and  municipal  officials 
who  have  jurisdiction  over  building  and  other  regulations. 
If  it  be  remembered  that  at  every  stage  of  this  complicated 
procedure  each  document  is  subjected  to  half  a  dozen  bureau- 
cratic processes,  and  requires,  as  the  untranslatable  bureaucratic 
jargon  runs,  to  be  prasentiert,  exhibiert,  indiziert,  prioriert, 
konzipierty  revidiert,  approbiert>  mundiert,  kollationiert,  ex- 
pedierty  and  registriert,  it  will  be  seen  how  large  is  the  field 
for  the  employment  of  talent  in  the  service  of  the  State. 
A  former  Papal  Nuncio  in  Vienna,  experienced  in  the  slow 
and  roundabout  ways  of  the  Roman  Curia,  expressed  some 
years  ago  to  the  writer  his  indignation  at  the  delays  of 
Austrian  bureaucracy.  "  One  knows  when  a  document  is 
handed  in  to  an  Austrian  Department  of  State,"  he  said  ; 
"  but  a  young  man  may  grow  old  before  knowing  when  he 
will  see  it  again.  Accustomed  as  I  am  to  the  business- 
like methods  of  the  Vatican,  I  find  these  eternal  delays 
exasperating  "  ! 

It   should    not   be   supposed   that    the    public   and   the 
business   world   do   not  writhe  under  such   an   administra- 


THE  STATE  81 

live  system.  But  no  one  has  much  hope  of  real  reform. 
Every  official  appointed  becomes  a  kind  of  vested  interest. 
A  new  Joseph  II.,  or  a  new  Lueger,  and  a  new  popular 
movement  would  be  required  to  reduce  the  bureaucracy 
and  to  simplify  its  procedure.  It  is  therefore  wiser  for 
those  who  have  dealings  with  the  official  world  to  culti- 
vate a  good  personal  relationship  with  influential  officials 
and  to  obtain,  by  favour,  the  application  of  what  is  known 
as  "  short  procedure  "  in  their  particular  case.  This  wisdom 
is  much  practised.  It  is  astonishing  how  rapidly  the  cum- 
brous bureaucratic  machine  can  work  when  its  wheels  are 
greased  by  good-will.  But  where  good-will  is  absent,  or 
ill-will  exists,  the  portals  of  a  ministry  might  bear  the 
inscription  :  Lasciate  ogni  speranza,  voi  ch'  entrate !  Not 
even  the  direct  personal  command  of  the  Emperor  is  always 
of  avail  to  overcome  the  resistance  of  obdurate  officials 
who  seem,  at  times,  determined  to  chasten  the  Monarch's 
sense  of  authority  and  to  prove  to  him  that  L'£tat,  dest 
nous  !  Some  years  ago  a  merchant,  much  esteemed  but 
ill-advised,  became  involved  in  difficulties.  A  rascally 
lawyer,  and  an  equally  rascally  relative,  contrived  to  give  to 
these  difficulties  a  fraudulent  appearance  and  to  secure  the 
condemnation  of  the  merchant  to  a  term  of  imprisonment. 
Indignant  at  such  injustice,  the  friends  of  the  family 
obtained  for  the  victim's  young  daughter  whom  these 
machinations  had  reduced  from  affluence  to  shameful 
penury,  a  private  audience  of  the  Emperor,  who,  touched  by 
the  girl's  story,  gave  her  an  order  for  her  father's  immediate 
release.  The  order  was  delivered  to  the  competent  official, 
but  the  merchant  remained  in  prison  and  fell  seriously 
ill.  Anxious  to  save  him  from  the  shame  of  dying  in 
prison,  friends  obtained  a  second  audience  for  the  daughter, 
to  whom  the  Emperor,  astonished  that  his  first  order  should 
not  have  been  obeyed,  gave  another  and  more  peremptory 
command.  Again  the  girl  repaired  to  the  competent  official, 
who  again,  with  disparaging  remarks,  showed  a  disposition 
to  obstruct  the  course  of  Imperial  clemency.  Luckily  the 

G 


82  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

girl,  though  scarcely  more  than  a  child,  had  the  courage  so 
vigorously  to  scold  the  official  and  so  to  threaten  him  with 
exposure,  that  he  countersigned  the  order  of  release.  The 
merchant  was  set  free — to  die  a  few  weeks  later  among  his 
impoverished  family.  The  names  and  details  of  this  singular 
instance  of  bureaucratic  obstruction  are  known  to  the  writer 
and  can  be  vouched  for. 

When  a  State  Department  sets  itself  to  obstruct  either 
the  course  of  justice  or  a  claim  against  itself  which,  if 
admitted,  might  imply  the  existence  of  some  culpability  or 
negligence  on  the  part  of  its  officials,  the  resistance  it  can 
offer  is  almost  insuperable.  Early  in  191 1,  at  a  level  crossing 
on  one  of  the  State  Railway  lines  in  Bohemia,  a  waggon 
laden  with  wood  stuck  fast  between  the  rails  on  account  of 
the  rottenness  of  a  sleeper.  A  passing  train  smashed  the 
waggon,  killed  one  of  the  horses  and  injured  another.  The 
local  tribunal  acquitted  the  waggon -driver  of  blame  and 
recognized  that  the  fault  lay  with  the  railway  administra- 
tion. The  waggon-driver  consequently  demanded  from  the 
State  £$o  indemnity.  The  first  step  of  the  State  Railway 
Administration  was  to  forbid  the  use  of  the  horse  that  had 
been  injured  but  had  in  the  meantime  recovered.  Then 
seven  different  commissions,  some  of  them  consisting  of 
eight  persons,  made  "  local  investigations."  The  commis- 
sions were  composed  of  officials  from  Pilsen,  Eger,  and 
Karlsbad,  and  included  veterinary  surgeons  from  Prague, 
Eger,  and  Karlsbad  to  enquire  into  the  condition  of  the 
injured  horse.  The  accident  was  "  reconstructed  " — a  waggon 
loaded  with  wood  was  placed  between  the  rails  and  a  loco- 
motive driven  to  within  a  foot  of  it.  The  repair  of  the 
defective  sleeper  was  forbidden  lest  the  de  facto  situation  be 
changed  pending  the  reports  of  the  commissions.  Presently, 
a  local  manufacturer,  whose  drays  repeatedly  stuck  fast  at 
the  same  crossing  and  had  to  be  lifted  out  of  it  by  main 
force,  offered  to  repair  the  defective  spot  at  his  own  expense. 
The  railway  traffic  managing  department  at  Pilsen  forbade 
him  to  do  so — doubtless  lest  the  case  be  prejudiced  against 


THE  STATE  83 

the  State  Railway  by  his  action.  On  March  6,  1912, 
more  than  a  year  after  the  occurrence,  a  member  of  Parlia- 
ment brought  the  matter  to  the  notice  of  the  Minister  for 
Railways  and  pressed  him  to  have  it  settled,  but  received 
from  the  Minister  on  July  3,  1912,  the  following  notifica- 
tion :  "  The  matter  at  issue  is  in  the  stage  of  probative 
procedure,  and  the  management  of  the  State  Railways  at 
Pilsen  cannot  therefore  take  up  any  attitude  in  regard  to  it 
until  the  procedure  is  terminated.  Investigation  on  the 
spot,  together  with  the  examination  of  witnesses  and  ex- 
perts, has  already  taken  place  and  now  the  reports  of  the 
expert  and  the  examination  of  several  railway  servants  are 
awaited."  The  sequel  is  unknown,  save  that  the  unfortunate 
waggoner  was  ruined  by  the  loss  of  his  waggon  and  by  the 
prohibition  to  use  or  sell  his  surviving  horse. 

The  bureaucracy,  whose  power  of  obstruction  such 
instances  illustrate,  is  fast  becoming  the  greatest  Austrian 
problem.  The  nationalization  of  railways  has  increased  the 
number  of  officials  by  leaps  and  bounds  and  has  rendered 
reform  imperative.  State  Railway  servants  are  at  once  in 
the  position  of  officials  and  of  workmen.  If  the  travelling 
public  insults  them,  the  insult  comes  within  the  category  of 
"  offences  against  State  officials  in  the  discharge  of  their 
functions."  Yet,  if  railway  servants  are  discontented,  they 
can  victimize  the  travelling  public  by  striking  work,  or  by 
"  passive  resistance,"  which  consists  in  over-punctilious  ob- 
servation of  the  regulations.  Austria  has  not  yet  ventured 
to  imitate  the  Prussian  system  of  dividing  State  officials 
into  three  broad  categories — the  superior  officials  with 
University  or  Technical  High  School  education,  the  medium 
officials  with  a  secondary  school  education,  and  the  sub- 
altern officials  with  lower  educational  qualifications  ;  nor  is 
it  certain  that  Austria,  which  is  in  many  ways  a  more  elastic 
State  than  Prussia,  would  do  well  merely  to  copy  Prussian 
models.  Austrian  officials  are  divided  into  eleven  ranks  or 
classes.  Though  a  university  education  is  usually  requisite 
for  the  attainment  of  the  highest  ranks,  some  favoured 


84  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

individuals  spring  rapidly  from  rank  to  rank  and  obtain 
increased  position  and  emoluments.  But  the  mass  have 
often  to  wait  ten  or  twelve  years  before  passing  from  a 
lower  rank  to  a  higher.  Emoluments  and  advancement 
are  fixed  by  law  but  an  infinity  of  ordinances  and  special 
allowances  leave  room  for  favouritism  and  arbitrary  treat- 
ment. Increases  of  salaries  and  allowances  have  repeatedly 
been  voted  by  Parliament,  but  no  statesman  has  yet  had  the 
courage  to  grapple  with  the  problem  as  a  whole. 

The  times,  maybe,  are  not  yet  ripe  for  the  drastic 
measures  needed  to  effect  a  real  improvement.  Dynastic 
interest  does  not  seem  to  demand  immediate  reform,  nor 
has  the  people,  in  Carlyle's  phrase,  yet  quite  "  got  its  eye  on 
the  knot  that  is  strangling  it."  Lueger's  attempts  to  defend 
the  "  small  man  "  against  the  monopolistic  organization  of 
trade  and  industry  led,  and  were  bound  to  lead,  to  an 
increase  of  State  and  Municipal  departments.  The  true 
defence  against  bureaucracy  of  all  sorts — the  cultivation  of 
a  spirit  of  political  independence  and  of  economic  self- 
reliance  among  private  individuals,  and  the  treatment  of 
bureaucrats  as  veritable  servants,  not  as  privileged  masters 
of  the  commonwealth — is  singularly  difficult  in  Austria, 
where  public  acquiescence  in  the  superiority  of  the  State 
and  its  servants  to  the  community  at  large  is  so  general 
as  to  impede  vigilant  public  control  of  bureaucratic  doings. 
Reform,  if  reform  be  feasible,  must  come  from  above,  or 
from  within  the  bureaucracy  itself,  whose  more  intelligent 
members  may  presently  perceive  the  dangers  to  which  the 
overgrowth  of  departments  and  the  multiplication  of  appoint- 
ments are  exposing  the  State  and  themselves.  In  Austria, 
changes  of  bureaucratic  system  have,  since  the  middle  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  usually  accompanied  or  preceded 
political  metamorphosis.  The  process  of  transforming  the 
old  feudal  State  into  a  centralized  polity  began  under  the 
semi-enlightened  autocracy  of  Maria  Theresa  who,  with  the 
help  of  Haugwitz  and  under  the  influence  of  French  Mercan- 
tilism, strove  to  absorb  into  the  State  the  independent 


THE  STATE  85 

administrations  of  the  great  nobles,  the  municipalities,  the 
monasteries  and  the  ecclesiastical  sees.  At  the  same  time, 
the  Police  System,  which  was  afterwards  to  become  a  syno- 
nym for  Austrian  rule,  was  gradually  developed.  When,  on 
the  death  of  his  father  in  1765,  Joseph  II.  became  co-regent 
with  his  mother,  Maria  Theresa,  the  transforming  tendency 
was  accelerated.  Little  by  little  the  power  and  jurisdiction 
of  the  feudal  nobles  were  curtailed,  the  population  began  to 
perceive  that  the  new  bureaucrats  were  more  influential  than 
the  old  lords,  the  fiscal  and  military  systems  were  reorgan- 
ized and  the  juridico-administrative  power  of  the  Church 
broken.  A  special  body  of  politico-economic  doctrine  was 
formulated  by  writers  and  professors  like  Martini  and 
Sonnenfels,  the  latter  a  savant  of  Jewish  extraction. 
Sonnenfels  enunciated  the  theory  that,  in  the  interest  of  the 
State,  the  Police  must  control  all  manifestations  of  public  life. 
The  "  Era  of  Enlightenment "  had  dawned.  The  Jesuits, 
formerly  omnipotent,  had  been  abolished  and  expelled  ;  the 
Freemasons  and  other  secret  societies  took  their  place  and 
flourished  exceedingly.  The  new  bureaucracy  was  perme- 
ated by  the  lay  spirit  and  by  secular  notions  of  the  relation- 
ship between  Church  and  State,  of  the  nature  of  the  marriage 
contract  and  of  the  lay  character  of  education.  The  clergy 
itself  accepted  in  part  the  new  ideas  and,  like  the  nobility, 
acquiesced  in  the  extension  of  the  functions  and  attributes 
of  the  State.  At  first,  the  progressive  centralization  of 
public  business  caused  delays  and  confusion,  but  when,  in 
1780,  Joseph  II.  succeeded  entirely  to  Maria  Theresa,  his 
capacity  for  hard  work  made  the  new  system  as  nearly  a 
success  as  it  could  possibly  become.  He  worked  from  dawn 
to  dark  and  made  his  officials  work  likewise ;  but  he  estab- 
lished "  conduct  lists "  for  officials  that  made  promotion 
depend  upon  secret  reports  and  engendered  a  spirit  of  pry- 
ing and  delation.  Deft  manipulation  of  reports  and  of 
"  conduct  lists  "  enabled  the  Freemasons  and  other  partisans 
of  "enlightenment"  to  secure  important  appointments  for 
their  own  nominees.  The  Jews,  whom  Maria  Theresa 


86  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

had  detested,1  but  whom  Joseph  had  partially  emanci- 
pated,2 made  rapid  headway,  and  Protestants  found  them- 
selves tolerated  and  encouraged.  The  spirit  of  the  age  was 
Encyclopedist  and  Jansenist,  but  the  channels  through 
which  it  spread  were  German.  Joseph's  object  was  to 
create  an  Austrian  nation  out  of  the  heterogeneous  elements 
constituting  the  Hapsburg  inheritance  under  the  Pragmatic 
Sanction.  Hence  his  attempt  to  establish  German  as  a 
single  State  language  for  the  whole  Monarchy  and  his 
ordinance  that  none  but  officials  knowing  German  could  be 
eligible  for  appointment  in  Hungary.  The  inherent  impossi- 
bility of  transforming  in  so  short  a  time  his  diversified  feudal 
realms  into  a  centralized  State,  the  pertinacious  resistance 
of  the  Magyars  and  his  own  declining  health,  doomed  his 
work  to  formal  failure.  But  the  centralized  bureaucracy  sur- 
vived him  and  remained  the  chief  instrument  of  government 
throughout  the  nineteenth  century. 

When,  upon  Joseph's  death  in  1790,  Leopold  came  from 
Tuscany  and  brought  with  him  precise  ideas  concerning  the 
secret  police  as  a  means  of  government,  and  a  disposition 
less  radical  than  that  of  his  brother,  the  reaction  that  was  to 
last  till  1848,  and  from  1849  to  I867,  gradually  set  in. 
The  excesses  of  the  French  Revolution  strengthened  the 
reactionary  tendency  and  enabled  Leopold's  successor, 
Francis,  and  his  Ministers,  Colloredo  and  Metternich,  to 
transform  the  police  and  the  bureaucracy  into  the  instrument 
of  oppression  under  which  Northern  Italy  and  the  greater 

1  Three  years  before  her  death,  Maria  Theresa  replied  as  follows  to  a  private 
petition  presented  by  her  Chief  Chancellor,  Count  Blumegen  (June  19,   1777): 
"  In  future  shall  no  Jew  be  allowed  to  stay  here  (in  Vienna)  without  my  written 
permission.     I  know  of  no  worse  plague  for  the  State  than  this  race  on  account 
of  deceit,  usury  and  money  management,  to  bring  people  to  beggary,  to  do  all 
evil  deeds  which  other  honest  folk  abhor ;  therefore,  as  much  as  possible,  to  be 
kept  away  and  avoided"  (cf.  Krones,  Geschichte  Oesterreichs,  vol.  iv.  p.  501). 

2  Joseph  allowed  the  Jews  (1785)  to  hire  and  subsequently  to  own  land, 
subject,  however,  to  the  condition  that  it  be  worked  by  "Jewish  hands,"  not 
exploited  indirectly.     This  condition  was  successfully  evaded.     Joseph  was  as 
little  able  to  overcome  the  Jewish  dislike  of  agricultural  labour  and  to  keep  them 
from  speculation  as  he  was  to  solve  the  Gipsy  question  in  Hungary  and  Bohemia 
(pp.  cit.  pp.  489-490). 


THE  STATE  87 

part  of  Germany  groaned  for  decades.  Colloredo,  the 
omnipotent  Minister  of  the  Emperor  Francis,  had  seen  that 
in  the  French  Revolution,  as  in  the  earlier  disturbances  in 
Belgium  and  Holland,  an  important  part  had  been  played 
by  lawyers,  doctors,  literary  men,  small  capitalists  and  the 
lower  clergy,  whereas  most  of  the  monarchical  counter-move- 
ments had  been  led  by  members  of  the  nobility  and  sup- 
ported by  the  common  people.  Hence,  he  concluded  that 
danger  to  Thrones  proceeded  principally  from  the  educated 
middle  classes.  His  "  system,"  subsequently  taken  over  and 
developed  by  Metternich,  sought,  consequently,  to  curtail 
and  circumscribe  the  development  of  the  middle  classes  by 
means  of  bureaucratic  and  police  control.  A  severe  censor- 
ship impeded  the  publication  of  scientific  or  literary  works. 
The  centralized  administration  established  by  Joseph  natur- 
ally became  clogged  when  monarchs  less  energetic  than  he 
ascended  the  throne  and  when  officials  were  no  longer  kept 
up  to  their  duty  by  his  example  and  martinet  discipline. 
Matters  which  Joseph  would  have  settled  in  a  few  days  or 
weeks  lingered  under  Francis  and  Colloredo  from  three 
to  ten  years.  Francis,  moreover,  resembling  in  this  his 
successors,  distrusted  men  of  talent.  He  regarded  them 
as  ambitious  and  prone  to  innovation.  Mediocrity  was 
preferred.  This  tendency  remained  strong  in  Austria  through- 
out the  nineteenth  century  and  has  not  yet  disappeared. 
It  has  been  well  defined  as  "  the  principle  of  inverted 
selection,"  the  application  of  which  guarantees  Monarchs 
and  Ministers  tranquillity  in  ordinary  times  and  leaves  them 
without  a  reliable  counsellor  at  moments  of  crisis.  The 
bureaucracy  was  schooled  to  bow  its  head,  obey  and  not 
interfere.  Officials  were  forbidden  to  point  out  the  defects 
of  the  working  of  laws  and  ordinances,  and  soon  came  to 
understand  that  when  their  opinion  as  "experts"  was  asked, 
flattering  acquiescence  rather  than  criticism  was  desired. 
In  these  circumstances  the  men  of  the  "  Party  of  Enlighten- 
ment "  that  had  grown  up  under  Joseph  and  was  still  strong 
in  the  lower  bureaucracy  were  fain  to  hide  their  heads  and 


88  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

dissemble  their  existence.  The  word  "  Culture  "  was  sub- 
stituted for  "  Enlightenment,"  "virtue"  was  much  talked  of, 
and  abject  loyalty  was  professed  towards  the  established 
order  of  things.  This  pliancy  saved  the  party  from  destruc- 
tion and  preserved,  at  least  in  spirit,  many  of  Joseph's  minor 
ordinances.  In  later  decades  when  milder  breezes  blew, 
Austrian  "  Liberalism "  blossomed  upon  the  old  Josephine 
stock — an  anaemic  blossom,  bearing  traces  of  the  means  by 
which  the  stock  had  been  kept  alive.  Austrian  "  Liberalism  " 
was  ever  a  hot-house  plant.  It  had  its  roots  in  the  bureau- 
cracy and  in  financial  and  industrial  capitalism,  not  in  the 
people.  Yet,  between  1867  and  1879,  it  served  a  useful 
purpose  until  superseded  by  Lueger's  Christian  Socialism  on 
the  one  hand,  and  by  Social  Democracy  on  the  other.  The  dis- 
appearance of  "  Liberalism  "  and  the  degeneration  of  Austrian 
parliamentarianism  into  a  system  under  which  cabinets 
composed  of  officials  purchase  the  support  of  parliamentary 
groups  or  of  influential  deputies  by  means  of  bureaucratic 
concessions,  have  tended  at  once  to  demoralize  the  bureaucracy 
itself  and  to  increase  its  numbers.  Now  the  community  is 
confronted  with  a  problem  of  the  first  magnitude  for  which 
no  solution  is  yet  in  sight — the  problem  presented  by  the  main- 
tenance of  an  immense  army  of  officials  possessing  executive 
authority  and  great  obstructive  but  little  creative  power,  an 
army  whose  maintenance  eats  up  nearly  one-third  of  the  public 
revenues  without  contributing  notably  to  them.  The  grow- 
ing complexity  of  social  and  economic  organization  naturally 
implies  an  increase  of  the  administrative  and  regulative  elements 
and  a  decrease  of  the  productive  elements  in  a  community. 
But  in  Austria  the  increase  has  been  disproportionate  and 
needs  to  be  checked.  Unless  means  are  found  to  reduce  the 
number  and  to  increase  the  efficiency  of  offices  and  officials, 
the  bureaucracy  itself  will  fall  into  discredit  and  will  become 
at  once  a  class  of  privileged  drones  and  educated  paupers. 
The  cost  of  living  has  risen  far  more  rapidly  than  the  salaries 
of  officials ;  progressive  impoverishment  and  indebtedness 
are  resulting.  From  time  to  time,  Parliament  is  induced  to 


THE  STATE  89 

grant  an  extra  dole  of  a  few  pounds  per  head  per  annum, 
but  so  great  is  the  number  of  officials  that,  though  the  dole  in 
the  aggregate  runs  into  millions  of  pounds  and  adds  seriously 
to  the  burdens  of  the  Exchequer,  it  brings  no  appreci- 
able relief  to  those  whom  it  is  intended  to  benefit.  Mean- 
while the  universities  continue  to  train  year  by  year  thousands 
of  youths  for  an  official  career.  Formerly  the  training  was 
almost  exclusively  legal  and  was  calculated  to  unfit  those 
who  received  it  for  practical  comprehension  of  the  needs  of 
the  people.  These  legally  trained  officials,  or  "jurists,"  still 
predominate  in  the  Austrian  bureaucracy  ;  there  are  nearly 
two  hundred  of  them  in  the  Lord  Lieutenancy  of  Lower 
Austria  alone.  But  latterly  the  Technical  High  Schools 
have  turned  out  engineers  and  other  "experts"  who  have 
gone  to  swell  the  army  of  bureaucrats  without  greatly 
increasing  its  efficiency.  As  the  supply  is  greater  than 
the  legitimate  demand,  political  influences  and  "  protection  " 
of  all  kinds  are  called  into  play  to  secure  appointments  for 
qualified  but  unemployed  candidates.  Thus  the  evil  grows, 
and  the  taxpayer  is  annually  burdened  with  the  maintenance 
of  more  and  more  officials  who  would  have  been  better 
employed  in  trade,  industry,  agriculture,  or  even  in  skilled 
labour.  Sooner  or  later  the  feeling  that  the  bureaucracy, 
like  the  monasteries  of  the  middle  ages,  are  eating  up  the 
land  will  inevitably  find  expression  in  a  demand  for  drastic 
retrenchment  and  reform. 

Signs  of  change  are  already  noticeable,  though  not  of  a 
change  for  the  better.  While  hundreds  of  aspiring,  artifici- 
ally-trained youths  crowd  into  the  bureaucracy  from  below, 
some  of  the  high  officials,  particularly  those  of  Jewish  ex- 
traction, are  forsaking  the  service  of  the  State  for  that  of 
private  or  semi -private  banks  and  business  undertakings. 
Others  claim  their  pensions  at  the  earliest  moment  and 
increase  their  incomes  by  joining  the  boards  of  banks  and 
industrial  companies  to  which  their  former  official  connexions 
enable  them  to  render  valuable  service.  The  points  of  sub- 
terranean contact  between  the  bureaucracy  and  the  private 


90  THE   HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

enterprises  which  it  ought  in  theory  to  control  are  thus 
increased,  and  new  wheels  are  added  to  the  wheels  within 
wheels  that  complicate  the  working  of  Austrian  affairs. 

THE  POLICE 

Scarcely  less  important  than  the  Bureaucracy  in  action 
and  influence  is  the  Police.  Those  who  have  never  lived 
and  worked  in  a  Polizeistaat  or  police-ridden  country  can 
hardly  comprehend  the  extent  to  which  the  whole  life  of 
the  community  is,  or  may  be,  influenced  by  the  police. 
The  Anglo-Saxon  conception  of  the  police  as  an  organiza- 
tion created  to  serve  the  public  and  to  protect  society  and 
individuals  from  evil-doers  is  singularly  at  variance  with  the 
conception  of  the  functions  of  the  police  that  prevails  in 
most  Continental  States.  The  police  are  a  direct  emanation 
of  the  theory  of  Divine  right.  The  Sovereign  in  ruling  over 
"his"  peoples  requires  a  "State  "to  administer  or  exploit 
them,  an  Army  to  keep  them  in  subjection,  a  Church  to 
direct  their  religious  aspirations  into  salutary  channels,  and 
a  Police  to  watch  over,  spy  upon,  denounce,  arrest  and 
guide  them.  The  police  are  thus  not  the  servants  but  the 
drill-sergeants  of  the  public.  They  may  perform  their 
functions  roughly  and  rudely*  as  in  Prussia,  corruptly  and 
stealthily  as  in  Russia,  or  politely  and  unobtrusively  as  in 
Austria,  but  in  their  essence  the  functions  are  the  same. 
Even  in  France  and  Italy  the  police  spirit  still  exists  and 
is  frequently  utilized  by  "  democratic "  Governments.  In 
Austria  the  spirit  is  at  least  as  old  as  the  Counter-Reforma- 
tion. It  came  with  the  Jesuits  and  was  elaborated  by  the 
Inquisition  but,  by  the  irony  of  Destiny,  it  was  reserved  for 
Joseph  II.  the  "reformer"  and  " enlightener "  to  infuse  the 
police  spirit  into  the  whole  State. 

A  monarch  of  Joseph's  energetic,  not  to  say  tyrannical, 
disposition  who,  for  all  his  enlightened  principles,  could 
brook  no  opposition  to  his  policy,  was  naturally  tempted  to 
develop  and  apply  a  police  system.  Sonnenfels,  the  ex-Jewish 


THE  STATE  91 

economist  and  savant,  had  written  a  work  on  the  Principles 
of  Police  and  Financial  Science.  Its  arrogance  and  sophistry 
did  not  prevent  it  from  exercising  considerable  influence 
upon  Joseph.  By  "  police,"  Sonnenfels  understood  every- 
thing pertaining  to  the  arrangements  for  the  internal 
safety  of  the  State,  and  laid  down  the  principle  that 
the  Church,  the  Schools,  the  Charitable  Institutions  and 
the  censorship  of  books  and  of  the  press  must  be  subject 
to  police  control.  "  Among  the  most  efficacious  means  of 
maintaining  good  morals  and  manners,"  wrote  Sonnenfels,1 
"  Religion  undoubtedly  deserves  the  first  place.  Religion 
supplies  the  deficiencies  of  legislation.  Wherever  the  eye 
of  the  Legislator  and  the  penalty  of  the  Judge  cannot  reach, 
Religion  is  present  to  check  by  her  threats  the  evil  enter- 
prises of  the  individual.  Therefore  the  Ruler  must  not 
neglect  this  rein  and  must  carefully  see  that  every  citizen 
has  Religion."  For  this  reason,  Sonnenfels  enjoined  upon 
the  Ruler  to  organize  parishes,  pay  the  parish  priests,  and 
regulate  Divine  service,  since  the  "  control  of  the  clergy  is 
an  essential  feature  of  the  policing  of  Religion."  Similarly, 
he  claimed,  the  police  could  not  remain  indifferent  to  educa- 
tion, which  is  too  closely  connected  with  general  welfare  to 
be  allowed  to  remain  in  private  hands.  Therefore  the 
police  must  decide  the  curriculum  of  the  schools,  the  teach- 
ings of  the  clergy,  and  censorize  "not  only  books,  maxims, 
newspapers,  public  speeches,  pictures  and  etchings  but  every- 
thing whatsoever  that  is  in  any  way  of  a  public  nature." 2 
The  registration  of  citizens,  police  passes,  domiciliary  visits 
and  other  measures,  he  recommended  as  valuable  means  of 
control.  Cleanliness  must  be  enforced,  and  child  murder 
checked  "  by  loving  treatment  of  fallen  girls," 3  and  duels 
must  be  made  subject  to  criminal  penalties.  The  objection 
that  such  a  system  would  stifle  civil  freedom  was  met  by 
Sonnenfels  with  the  claim  that  veritable  freedom  is  freedom 
to  act  in  a  manner  not  contrary  to  civil  laws. 

1  Polizeiwissenschaft,  par.  90.  2  Polizeiwissenschaft,  pp.  146-147. 

3  Polizeiwissenschaft,  p.  213. 


92  THE   HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

Under  Maria  Theresa,  District  Offices  had  been  estab- 
lished to  watch  over  the  execution  of  the  laws.  Under 
Joseph  II.  these  Offices  were  transformed  into  offices  of 
public  surveillance  and  were  themselves  controlled  by  the 
police.  Priests,  doctors,  officials  and  lawyers  whom  the 
police  suspected  were  prevented  from  receiving  promotion. 
Despite  the  ordinance  of  June  1771,  in  which  Joseph 
authorized  "  criticism  in  so  far  as  it  is  not  merely  abuse,"  a 
simultaneous  ordinance  made  all  publications  subject  to  the 
official  imprimatur  which,  in  practice,  proved  to  mean  the 
suppression  of  everything  distasteful  to  the  police.  Joseph 
II.  used  the  press  and  even  the  theatre  freely  for  the 
propagation  of  his  ideas,  and  suffered  no  contradiction.  In 
proportion  as  discontent  grew  he  extended  the  institution  of 
secret  "  conduct  lists  "  for  officials,  favoured  secret  informers 
and  utilized  the  clergy  to  praise  all  Government  measures. 
In  1785  he  established  in  every  provincial  capital  a  director 
of  police  who,  in  some  respects,  was  dependent  upon  the 
Governor  of  the  Province  but  was  in  other  respects 
independent  of  him.  In  practice,  the  police  was  used  to 
spy  upon  the  local  officials.  Alongside  of  the  uniformed 
constables,  a  host  of  "  plain  clothes  "  men  and  women  were 
engaged  under  the  names  of  "  friends,"  "  correspondents," 
and  confidents.  The  confidents  were  coffee-house  and  hotel- 
keepers,  theatre  servants,  cab  drivers,  house  porters,  and 
prostitutes.  They  permeated  the  civil  administration  and 
even  the  Army,  spreading  distrust  and  suspicion.  The  evils 
inseparable  from  their  activity  were  mitigated,  however,  by 
the  good  nature  and  easy-going  disposition  characteristic  of 
most  Austrians,  even  when  clothed  with  official  authority — 
provided  always  that  their  authority  be  not  called  in  question. 
Upon  the  death  of  Joseph  little  change  occurred,  save  that 
the  police  also  was  affected  by  the  general  slackening  of 
tension  which  characterized  Leopold's  short  reign  of  transi- 
tion. Leopold,  indeed,  maintained  and  developed  the  secret 
police,  though  in  some  parts  of  the  Empire  the  number  of 
regular  police  officials  was  diminished.  But,  upon  the 


THE  STATE  93 

accession  of  Francis,  the  Josephine  system  was  revived  in 
all  its  rigour  and  was  brought  by  Count  Colloredo  to  a  pitch 
of  perfection  unequalled  before  or  since  in  any  large  State, 
save  perhaps  in  the  Ottoman  Empire  under  Abdul  Hamid. 
The  principles  of  Sonnenfels  were  extended  by  Colloredo  in 
the  light  of  the  lessons  taught  by  the  French  Revolution. 
While  in  the  provinces  some  freedom  of  opinion  persisted 
despite  police  pressure,  the  intellectual  life  of  the  cities  was 
completely  blighted.  The  objects  of  the  police  were  to 
prevent  the  dissemination  of  "  dangerous  knowledge,"  to 
impede  conversations  disagreeable  to  the  Government,  and 
secretly  to  spread  news,  opinions,  and  principles  favourable 
to  the  Government.  Violent  means  of  oppression  and 
repression  were  rarely  employed.  Imprisonment  and  the 
gallows  were  reserved  for  political  rebels  ;  their  employment 
for  "  crimes  of  opinion  "  might  have  caused  an  undesirable 
sensation  !  Police  "  warnings,"  slight  restrictions  of  personal 
freedom,  constant  surveillance,  and,  in  the  case  of  individuals 
in  Government  employ,  degradations,  transfers  and  "  isolation" 
were  felt  to  be  preferable  and  more  efficacious.1  In  a  word 
the  employment  of  subterranean  methods  became  a  maxim 
of  Government — a  maxim  which  has  not  lost  currency  even 
to-day. 

A  graphic  description,  by  a  contemporary  British  observer, 
of  the  condition  of  Austria  and  of  Vienna  in  particular 
during  the  reign  of  the  Emperor  Francis,  may  be  found  in  a 
book  entitled  A  Tour  in  Germany  and  some  of  the  Southern 
Provinces  of  the  Austrian  Empire  in  the  years  1820,  1821, 
and  1822,  by  John  Russell,  Esq.  (Edinburgh  :  Archibald 
Constable  &  Co.,  1825).  "But,"  he  writes,  "though  the 
Austrians  have  no  great  capacity  for  thinking,  and  a  very 
great  capacity  for  immorality  and  superstition,  much  of  both 
must  be  ascribed  to  that  total  prostration  of  intellect  which 
their  government  inflicts  upon  them,  a  prostration  which  can 
never  last  long,  in  the  degree  in  which  it  exists  in  Vienna, 

1  Cf.  Geschichte  der  osterreichischen  Staatsverwaltung,  1740-1848;  von  Dr. 
Ignaz  Beidtel,  Innsbruck,  1898,  vol.  ii.  pp.  77-131. 


94  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

without  producing  some  degradation  of  the  moral  principle. 
The  whole  political  principle  is  directed,  with  prying  and 
persecuting  jealousy,  to  keep  people  in  ignorance  of  all  that 
goes  on  in  the  world,  except  what  it  suits  the  Cabinet  to 
make  known,  and  to  prevent  people  from  thinking  on  what 
is  known  differently  from  the  way  in  which  the  Cabinet 
thinks.  All  the  modes  of  education  are  arranged  on  the 
same  depressing  principle  of  keeping  the  mind  in  such  a 
state  that  it  shall  neither  feel  the  temptation,  nor  possess 
the  ability,  to  resist  power.  During  the  Congress  of 
Laybach,  the  Emperor  said  to  the  teachers  of  a  public 
seminary,  '  I  want  no  learned  men  ;  I  need  no  learned  men  ; 
I  want  men  who  will  do  what  I  bid  them,'  or  something  to 
the  same  purpose, — the  most  unfortunate  words  for  the 
honour  of  his  throne  that  could  be  put  into  the  mouth  of 
a  monarch.  The  principle  is  fully  acted  on  in  Vienna  ; 
over  all  knowledge,  and  all  thinking,  on  everything  public, 
and  on  everything  relating  to  the  political  events  and 
institutions  not  only  of  the  Empire  but  of  all  other  countries 
there  broods  a  '  darkness  that  may  be  felt ' ;  nowhere  will 
you  find  a  more  lamentable  ignorance,  or  a  more  melancholy 
horror  of  being  suspected  of  a  desire  to  be  wise  above  what 
is  written  down  by  the  editor  of  the  Austrian  Observer. 
Nothing  is  known  but  to  official  men  ;  and  the  first  official 
duty  is  to  confine  all  knowledge  within  the  official  circle.  .  .  . 
"  The  Austrian  police, — monstrum  horrendum,  ingens  ; — 
it  cannot  be  added,  cui  lumen  ademptum,  for  it  has  the  eyes 
of  an  Argus,  though  no  Mercury  has  yet  been  found  to 
charm  them  to  sleep,  while  he  rescued  manly  thought  and 
intellectual  exertion  from  the  brute  form  into  which  political 
jealousy  has  metamorphosed  them.  The  French  police  under 
Napoleon  was  reckoned  perfect ;  in  efficiency,  it  could  not 
possibly  surpass  that  of  Vienna,  which  successfully  represses 
every  expression  of  thought,  by  forcing  on  all  the  deadening 
conviction  that  the  eyes  and  ears  of  spies  are  everywhere. 
The  consequences  of  a  denunciation  are,  secret  arrest, 
secret  imprisonment,  and  an  unknown  punishment.  .  .  . 


THE  STATE  95 

The  efficiency  of  such  a  system  depends  upon  those  who 
are  its  instruments  being  unknown." 1 

Despite  the  changes  and  reforms  that  have  marked  the 
reign  of  the  Emperor  Francis  Joseph,  practical  acquaintance 
with  the  daily  life  of  Austria  soon  convinces  observers  that 
the  Austrian  police  remains,  at  least  potentially,  much  what 
it  was  a  hundred  years  ago.  Its  portrait,  posthumously 
painted  by  experienced  officials  like  Dr.  Ignaz  Beidtel,  whose 
History  of  the  Austrian  State  Administration,  1740—1848, 
has  been  laid  under  contribution  in  the  foregoing  pages,  is 
still  true  to  the  life,  though  the  colours,  like  those  of  ancient 
frescoes,  have  grown  paler  with  time.  At  moments  of  crisis, 
the  colours  revive  automatically  and  render  the  resemblance 
or  rather  the  identity  more  apparent.  In  normal  circum- 
stances, however,  the  action  of  the  police  is  not  obtrusive. 
The  stranger  is  unaware  that  the  porter  of  his  house  is  a 
confident  of  the  police,  and  that  his  goings  and  comings, 
his  manner  of  life,  the  number  and  names  of  his  friends  and 
all  personal  details  are  carefully  communicated  by  the  porter 
to  the  police  which  preserves  them  in  a  dossier  ready  for 
communication  to  the  political  or  to  the  fiscal  authorities  as 
occasion  may  require.  Unless  warned  from  some  friendly 
quarter,  he  may  not  know  that  his  correspondence  is  being 
watched,  his  telephone  "  tapped  "  and  his  intercourse  noted. 
On  settling  in  Austria  he  must,  as  in  Germany,  fill  up  a 
registration  form  for  the  police,  and  is  thereupon  invited  to 
visit  personally  the  police  commissioner  of  his  district  who 
examines  his  papers  and  questions  him  as  to  the  purpose  of 
his  residence  in  the  country.  Then,  if  explanations  be  satis- 
factory, he  is  troubled  no  more  except  by  the  income-tax 
authorities  who  sometimes  display  quite  uncanny  knowledge 
of  the  number  of  dinner  parties  he  has  given,  how  often  he 
has  driven  out  in  a  two-horse  cab  or  motor-car  and  whether 
he  is  addicted  to  expensive  amusements.  Here  his  direct 
knowledge  of  the  action  of  the  police  will  probably  end 
unless,  having  declined  to  certify,  as  the  Regulations  in 
1  Cf.  Russell,  op.  cit.  vol.  ii.  pp.  296-299. 


96  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

regard  to  Domestic  Servants  require,  that  a  dishonest  servant 
is  "industrious,  honest,  and  faithful,"  or  having  otherwise 
resisted  exactions,  he  finds  that  advantage  has  been  taken 
of  his  ignorance  of  laws  and  customs  to  invoke  the  aid  of 
the  police  against  him.  In  such  cases  the  police  is,  as  a 
rule,  conciliatory  and  patient.  Its  tendency  as,  indeed,  the 
tendency  of  the  lower  tribunals,  is  to  protect  the  servant 
against  the  master,  and  the  lower  against  the  middle  class. 
The  readiness  with  which  the  lower  classes  appeal  to  the 
police  is  remarkable  and  indicates  the  success  of  the 
systematic  endeavours  on  the  part  of  the  authorities  to 
make  the  common  people  feel  that  the  State  is  on  their 
side.  There  are  doubtless  exceptions,  as  when  powerful 
nobles  or  high  officials  are  involved  in  disputes  with  some 
member  of  the  lower  classes.  Then  the  influence  of  the 
police  or  of  the  district  tribunals  may  not  so  readily  favour 
the  "small  man."  But  it  is  when  political  interests  are 
directly  at  stake  that  the  police  and  the  courts  appear 
most  clearly  as  instruments  of  Government.  Political  dis- 
turbances and  rioting  are  dealt  with  as  official  interests  are 
supposed  to  require.  In  the  autumn  of  1905  a  Socialist 
manifestation  in  favour  of  universal  suffrage  was  violently 
suppressed  ;  blood  was  shed  and  arrests  were  made.  But 
within  a  week  the  wind  in  the  higher  regions  had  changed, 
and  the  Government  had  veered  round  in  favour  of  universal 
suffrage.  A  huge  Socialist  demonstration  was  organized  in 
agreement  with  the  police  which  was  instructed  by  the 
Government  to  evacuate  the  main  thoroughfare  of  Vienna, 
the  Ringsrasse,  and  to  leave  it  for  several  hours  entirely  to 
the  Socialists.  The  police  guarded  only  the  Hofburg  or 
Imperial  Palace.  In  the  autumn  of  1911,  a  Socialist 
agitation  of  which  the  Government  did  not  approve  was 
directed  against  the  Agrarians  and  the  rise  in  the  prices 
of  food  for  which  the  Agrarians  were  held  responsible. 
The  police  and  the  military  suppressed  it  with  vigour, 
a  number  of  lives  being  lost.  On  this  occasion  the 
Courts  inflicted  severe  sentences  upon  boys  not  out  of 


THE  STATE  97 

their  teens,  and  punished  with  long  terms  of  imprison- 
ment any  culprit  who  confessed  that  he  had  thrown  a 
stone. 

In  general,  however,  the  relationship  between  the  public, 
nay,  even  between  the  criminal  classes,  and  the  police  is 
reciprocally  amicable.  The  harsh  angularity  noticeable  in 
Prussia  and  the  gratuitous  brutality  that  sometimes  char- 
acterizes the  Paris  police  are  alike  unknown  in  Austria. 
Without  being  the  friend  of  the  public  like  the  British  police- 
man, the  Austrian  constable  is  not  a  terrorist.  Toleration 
and  moderate  control  seem  to  be  preferred  to  drastic  action. 
Even  the  police  officials  are  artistically  minded  and  prone 
to  make  allowances  for  human  nature.  There  is  an  easy- 
going Gemiitlichkeit  in  their  methods  that  would  scarcely  be 
conceivable  in  other  countries  and  is  not  always  laudable, 
even  in  Austria.  But  on  occasion  the  police  is  intractable 
— whenever  its  professional  vanity  or  the  personal  ambition 
of  its  chiefs  is  involved.  Then  it  can  be  ruthless  and  tyran- 
nical, browbeating  or  inspiring  the  press,  disseminating  de- 
famatory information  concerning  the  objects  of  its  suspicions, 
and  appearing  to  be  persuaded  that  the  condemnation  of  a 
possibly  innocent  man  would  be  a  lesser  evil  than  a  police 
fiasco.  The  case  of  Lieutenant  Hofrichter,  who  was  con- 
victed of  poisoning  a  brother  officer  belonging  to  the 
General  Staff,  is  a  case  in  point.  Hofrichter  was  doubt- 
less guilty,  but  the  methods  employed  by  the  police  to 
hound  him  down  and  discredit  him  long  before  any  but 
the  most  imperfect  circumstantial  evidence  had  been 
obtained,  would  have  ruined  him  had  he  been  a  hundred 
times  innocent.  Other  criminal  cases  have  thrown  singular 
light  upon  Austrian  police  psychology.  In  the  autumn  of 
1 9 1 1  a  vagabond  named  Voigt  was  tried  for  outrage  and 
murder.  The  murderer,  who  had  made  a  confession  to  the 
police,  changed  his  version  of  the  circumstances  during  the 
trial.  The  presiding  Judge  reminded  him  that  his  first 
account  had  been  different,  as  his  confession  to  the  police 
showed.  The  accused  asserted  that  the  confession  had  only 

H 


98  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

been  made  in  order  to  give  pleasure  to  the  police  com- 
missioner, who  had  begged  Voigt  "  not  to  grudge  him  this 
success."  "  That,"  returned  the  Judge,  "  sounds  very  im- 
probable." Voigt :  "  It  is  very  probable.  .  .  .  The  com- 
missioner begged  me  and  tormented  me  saying,  'Don't 
grudge  me  the  success.'  I  repeat  it.  I  answered,  '  Good  ; 
if  you  want  a  success,  let  us  make  a  confession.1 "  (Loud 
laughter  in  Court.)  Presently  the  police  commissioner  in 
question  was  called  as  a  witness  and  asked  by  the  Judge 
whether  he  had  put  any  moral  pressure  upon  the  prisoner 
to  make  him  confess.  The  Judge  added  that,  according  to 
the  prisoner,  the  commissioner  had  asked  the  prisoner  "  not 
to  grudge  him  the  success."  The  commissioner  replied,  "  I 
was  convinced  that  Voigt  was  the  murderer  and,  as  he  would 
not  ease  his  conscience  by  confessing,  I  said  to  him, '  If  you 
will  not  confess  of  your  own  accord,  give  me  the  personal 
satisfaction  of  doing  it  as  a  pleasure  to  me/  That  I  readily 
admit."  Voigt  rose  and  said,  "  This  evidence  of  the  police 
commissioner  commands  my  entire  respect.  Although  the 
commissioner  said  in  taking  leave  of  me,  '  We  may  never  see 
each  other  again,'  I  have  nevertheless  (with  an  elegant  bow 
to  the  commissioner)  the  honour  and  pleasure  of  seeing  him 
again."  The  Public  Prosecutor  :  "  A  humorous  fellow  !  " 
This  scene  is  characteristic  not  only  of  the  attitude  of  the 
Austrian  police  towards  criminals  but  also  of  the  tone  that 
frequently  prevails  in  court. 


JUSTICE 

The  administration  of  Justice  in  Austria  is  naturally 
affected  by  the  conditions  under  which  it  has  developed  and 
the  public  atmosphere  of  the  country.  The  judges  are  not 
priests  of  the  Veiled  Goddess,  applying  the  law  with  a  single 
eye  to  equity,  but  are  State  officials,  dependent  for  appoint- 
ment upon  the  Minister  of  Justice  and,  in  the  higher  ranks, 
upon  the  pleasure  of  the  Crown.  The  Emperor  Francis  in- 


THE  STATE  99 

scribed,  indeed,  the  words  "  Justitia  Regnorum  Fundamentum" 
upon  the  outer  gateway  of  the  Hofburg,  but  his  conception 
of  Justice,  like  that  of  patriotism,  was  apt  to  be,  "Justice 
for  Me."  Judges  are,  theoretically  and  practically,  officials 
delegated  to  discharge  the  judicial  functions  of  the  Crown. 
They  are  appointed  by  the  Emperor,  or  in  his  name, 
for  life,  and  can  only  be  removed  or  punished  in  accord- 
ance with  regular  procedure.  By  the  Constitution  of 
1867  they  are  independent  in  the  exercise  of  their  office. 
They  are  not  allowed  to  question  the  validity  of  the  laws 
they  administer,  though  the  Higher  Courts  are  entitled 
to  decide  upon  the  validity  of  Ministerial  Ordinances. 
Like  the  administrative  functions  of  the  State,  the  judicial 
functions  were  originally  exercised  by  or  in  the  name 
of  the  Feudal  Nobles  and  landed  proprietors  who  had, 
in  most  cases,  power  of  life  and  death.  Maria  Theresa 
centralized  the  higher  instances  of  civil  and  penal  justice, 
leaving  only  the  District  Courts  in  the  hands  of  the  local 
magnates  and  landlords.  After  the  Revolution  of  1848  the 
whole  system  of  justice  was  "  nationalized  "  and  reformed  by 
Alexander  Bach.  It  was  further  reformed  by  the  Constitu- 
tion of  1867  and  the  competence  of  the  various  courts 
defined  by  law.  But  the  independence  of  Judges  (of  whom 
there  are  some  7000  as  compared  with  160  in  England)  is 
an  independence  sui  generis.  As  a  body  of  officials,  the 
Austrian  judges  are  as  incorruptible  and  upright  as  any 
similar  body  of  7000  ill-paid  men  in  any  country  in  the 
world  ;  but  the  very  conditions  that  regulate  the  appoint- 
ment and  promotion  of  judges  ensure  that  a  judge  shall  not 
be  undesirably  independent  of  State  interests.  Promotion  is 
entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  Minister  of  Justice  and,  in  the 
last  resort,  of  the  Crown.  A  judge  whose  attitude  dis- 
pleases the  Minister,  or  the  Crown,  is  apt  to  wait  in  vain  for 
advancement.  Before  a  judge  of  a  District  Court  can  hope 
for  promotion  to  a  Provincial  or  to  the  Supreme  Provincial 
Court,  he  must  acquire  "  protection  "  from  some  influential 
quarter  or  have  distinguished  himself  by  publishing  a  learned 


ioo  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

treatise  on  jurisprudence  or  have  rendered  services  to  the 
Government  by  special  pliancy  or  skill.  Moreover,  the 
higher  judges  are  usually  chosen  from  among  the  State 
Attorneys  or  public  prosecutors.  The  careers  of  these 
men  have  tended  to  unfit  them  for  the  exercise  of 
judicial  functions.  The  best  years  of  their  lives  have  been 
passed  in  executing  instructions  received  from  the  Govern- 
ment or  in  instituting  judicial  proceedings  against  tendencies 
and  persons  displeasing  to  the  Government,  in  the  hope 
that  zeal  may  be  rewarded  by  a  judgeship.  Consequently 
they  are  apt  to  remain,  after  appointment  to  the  judicial 
bench,  rather  the  executors  of  instructions  and  servants 
of  the  Government  than  veritable  custodians  of  law  and 
equity. 

The  tendency  of  Judges  to  accommodate  their  attitude 
to  the  supposed  exigencies  of  the  State  has  rarely  been  more 
strikingly  illustrated  than  during  the  famous  Friedjung  trial 
of  December  I  pop.1  The  trial  arose  out  of  the  prosecution 
of  the  Austrian  historian,  Dr.  Friedjung,  by  the  Serbo- 
Croatian  Coalition  majority  in  the  Croatian  Diet  for 
calumnious  assertions  made  by  Dr.  Friedjung  in  an  article 
contributed  to  the  Neue  Freie  Presse  of  March  25,  1909. 
The  article  was  based  on  secret  documents  supplied  to 
Dr.  Friedjung  by  the  Austro- Hungarian  Foreign  Office, 
and  was  intended  by  the  Foreign  Minister,  Count  Aehrenthal, 
to  be  at  once  a  fanfare  of  war  against  Servia  and  an  indict- 
ment of  sundry  Serbo-Croatian  politicians  for  alleged 
treasonable  commerce  with  Servia.  Had  war  broken  out, 
it  is  unquestionable  that,  on  the  strength  of  these  secret 
documents,  the  leading  Croatian  and  Serb  politicians  of  the 
Monarchy  would  have  been  court-martialled  and  shot ;  but 
Russian  acceptance  of  the  German  "  ultimatum  "  presented  at 
St.  Petersburg  on  March  24,  1909,  removed  the  danger  of 
war  and  made  Dr.  Friedjung's  article  on  March  25  a  work 
of  supererogation.  Otherwise  the  article  would  have  passed 

1  An  accurate  and  detailed  account  of  this  important  trial  is  given  in  Mr. 
R.  W.  Seton- Watson's  Southern  Slav  Question.     London  :  Constable  &  Co. 


THE  STATE  101 

as  a  patriotic  utterance  and  the  authenticity  of  the  docu- 
ments underlying  it  would  have  been  the  less  open  to 
question  in  that  most  of  the  personages  against  whom  it 
was  directed  would  have  been  shot  or  compelled  to  flee  the 
country.  But,  as  peace  was  preserved,  these  very  personages 
were  at  liberty  to  examine  the  charges  brought  against 
them  and  to  demonstrate  their  baselessness.  The  Serbo- 
Croatian  Coalition,  as  a  body,  therefore  prosecuted  Dr. 
Friedjung,  while  its  leader,  M.  Supilo,  and  other  members 
whom  Dr.  Friedjung  had  accused  by  name  of  treasonable 
corruption,  prosecuted  him  separately.  The  question  at 
issue  was  whether  a  Serbo-Croatian  conspiracy  against  the 
Monarchy  had  been  organized  with  the  help  of  the  Servian 
Government  through  a  Servian  student  society  called  the 
Slovenski-Jug  (the  Slav  South),  and  whether  the  documents 
supplied  by  the  Austro-Hungarian  Foreign  Office  to  Dr. 
Friedjung,  which  purported  to  be  minutes  of  the  secret 
sittings  of  the  Slovenski-Jug  Society,  were  or  were  not 
authentic.  Great  interest  attached  to  the  trial,  both  because 
of  the  light  it  was  expected  to  throw  upon  Austro-Hungarian 
policy  towards  Servia  and  the  Serbo-Croatians,  or  Southern 
Slavs,  in  general,  and  because  Austro-Hungarian  Ambassadors 
abroad  had  been  instructed  to  inform  foreign  governments 
that  the  Monarchy  had  been  driven  by  this  alleged  Serbo- 
Croatian  Conspiracy  to  annex  the  provinces  of  Bosnia  and 
Herzegovina.  In  point  of  fact,  the  real  defendants  in  the 
action  were  not  so  much  Dr.  Friedjung  and  his  associates 
as  the  Austro  -  Hungarian  Foreign  Office  and  its  secret 
service.  Dr.  Friedjung  was  a  figurehead  and  a  tool  whose 
reputation  as  a  historian  had  been  used  by  Count  Aehrenthal 
to  lend  weight  and  an  appearance  of  respectability  to  an 
unscrupulous  piece  of  political  denunciation.  Had  Austria 
possessed  a  judiciary  trained  to  place  the  interests  of  Justice 
above  the  supposed  interests  of  the  State,  the  Friedjung 
trial  would  have  redounded  to  the  credit  of  the  Monarchy 
and  have  increased  its  prestige  in  the  Southern  Slav  world. 
Some  minor  diplomatists  and  their  dubious  agents  would 


102  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

have  been  punished,  the  Austro-Hungarian  Foreign  Office 
would  have  stood  convicted  of  light-minded  carelessness, 
but  the  impartiality  of  Austrian  Justice  would  have  been 
so  vindicated  that  its  name  would  have  rung  sympathetically 
throughout  Europe  and  the  Balkans.  Unfortunately  this 
was  not  to  be,  nor  could  it  be.  A  judiciary  trained  to  be 
an  instrument  of  Ministers  cannot  undertake  overnight  the 
protection  of  the  State's  highest  interests.  The  presiding 
Judge  was  chosen  for  his  "  reliability,"  the  Jury  was  packed 
with  "patriots"  of  the  most  narrow-minded  "black  and  yellow" 
school,  and  a  plan  of  campaign  was  arranged  in  advance  with 
the  defendants  for  the  purpose  of  overwhelming  the  plaintiffs. 
The  Judge  lost  no  time  in  revealing  his  attitude.  He  allowed 
the  defendants  to  harangue  the  Jury  in  an  ultra-patriotic 
strain  for  two  days  and  to  lay  before  the  Court  printed 
copies  —  but  no  originals  —  of  their  secret  "  documents," 
before  the  plaintiffs  or  their  counsel  were  given  an  opportunity 
of  stating  their  case  or  of  cross-examining  the  defendants. 
False  witnesses  having  been  called  with  the  object  of 
discrediting  the  Serbo-Croatian  Coalition  in  the  person  of 
its  leader,  M.  Supilo,  the  semi-official  press  was  let  loose, 
before  he  could  be  heard  in  self-defence,  to  describe  him  as 
a  "  political  corpse  hanging,  with  shattered  bones,  from  the 
tree  of  Justice."  But  in  Austria,  as  elsewhere,  the  best- 
laid  plans  are  apt  to  go  awry.  The  publication  in  the 
press  of  Dr.  Friedjung's  "  documents,"  purporting  to  be  the 
minutes  of  the  Slovenski-Jug  Society,  brought  suddenly  from 
Belgrade  a  University  professor,  Dr.  Bozo  Markovitch,  the 
president  of  the  Slovenski-Jug  itself.  Seeing  his  name 
appended  to  a  number  of  fantastical  secret  "  minutes  "  and 
accounts  of  money  payments  to  M.  Supilo  and  others,  he 
came  unbidden  to  Vienna  to  inform  the  Court  that  during 
the  weeks  when,  according  to  these  "documents,"  he  was 
presiding  over  meetings  of  conspirators  at  Belgrade,  he 
had  been  in  reality  at  Berlin  attending  lectures  on  juris- 
prudence and  frequenting  the  houses  of  eminent  German 
professors  of  Law.  This  alibi,  which  the  Berlin  police 


THE  STATE  103 

unkindly  confirmed  in  every  particular,  tore  a  grievous 
hole  in  Dr.  Friedjung's  case.  Further  rents  were  made 
by  the  demonstration,  undertaken  by  the  Servian  Under- 
secretary of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs,  M.  Spalaikovitch, 
whom  Dr.  Friedjung  had  likewise  denounced,  that  the 
numbers,  dates,  and  language  of  secret  despatches  alleged 
by  Dr.  Friedjung  to  have  been  purloined  by  Austro- 
Hungarian  agents  from  the  Servian  Foreign  Office  Archives 
and  replaced  after  having  been  photographed,  were  false 
and  fantastical ;  and  by  proof  that  all  the  circumstances 
mentioned  in  the  false  evidence  adduced  against  M.  Supilo 
were  malicious  inventions.  Supported  by  the  Judge  and 
Jury,  Dr.  Friedjung,  whose  vanity  as  a  "  scientific  historian  " 
got  the  better  of  his  good  sense,  struggled  for  days  against 
this  weight  of  misfortune  ;  until  the  Judge,  who  had  obtained 
an  inkling  of  the  effect  produced  in  Government  spheres  by 
the  collapse  of  the  "documents,"  suddenly  changed  his 
attitude  and  promoted  an  "honourable  settlement"  He 
transformed  himself  from  a  prejudiced  browbeater  into  a 
benevolent  peacemaker,  allowed  the  plaintiffs  full  latitude 
to  state  their  case  and  to  prove  both  the  inherent  im- 
probability and  the  actual  baselessness  of  the  charges 
brought  against  them.  Finally,  under  pressure  from  the 
Government,  the  case  was  "  arranged "  by  an  exchange 
of  declarations  between  defendants  and  plaintiffs ;  Count 
Aehrenthal  informed  a  visitor  that  he  had  never  believed 
in  the  authenticity  of  the  documents ;  and  the  official 
organ  of  the  Foreign  Office  astounded  the  diplomatic 
world  by  stating  that  Austro- Hungarian  Foreign  Policy 
had  never  been  influenced  by  any  belief  in  the  existence 
of  a  Serbo-Croatian  Conspiracy  !  The  effect  upon  Austro- 
Hungarian  prestige  in  the  Southern  Slav  world  may  be 
imagined. 

The  Serbo-Croatian  leaders,  who  felt  that  they  owed 
their  lives  to  chance  and  their  reputations  to  the  intrepid 
honesty  of  a  young  Servian  Professor,  worked  nevertheless 
to  discover  the  veritable  source  of  the  notorious  "  documents." 


104  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

With  the  help  of  Professor  Masaryk,  a  Czech,  or  rather 
Slovak,  savant  of  the  highest  scientific  and  moral  standing, 
they  succeeded  in  proving,  a  twelvemonth  later,  that  most 
if  not  all  of  the  "  documents "  had  been  fabricated  and 
photographed  at  the  instance  and  in  the  house  of  a  member 
of  the  Austro-Hungarian  Legation  at  Belgrade,  and  sent 
thence  to  the  Austro-Hungarian  Foreign  Office  and  other 
influential  quarters.  The  original  of  one  such  fabrication, 
found  in  the  possession  of  the  forger,  a  ne'er-do-well  Servian 
named  Vasitch,  proved  to  be  a  yard  long  by  fifteen  inches 
broad — a  singularly  unwieldy  size  for  the  "minutes"  of 
a  conspiring  student  society,  but  well  adapted  for  photo- 
graphic purposes  and  corresponding  exactly  to  the  holes 
made  by  drawing-pins  in  the  door  of  the  Austro-Hungarian 
Legation  servant's  room,  to  which  the  "  documents "  had 
been  affixed  after  fabrication  in  order  to  be  photographed. 
Vasitch,  the  forger,  who  had  been  employed  by  a  member  of 
the  Austro-Hungarian  Legation  at  Belgrade,  was  prosecuted 
by  the  Servian  Government  for  high  treason  and  condemned 
to  fifteen  years'  penal  servitude. 


It  is  characteristic  of  Austrian  public  affairs  that  so 
resounding  a  fiasco  as  the  Friedjung  trial  and  so  discreditable 
a  scandal  as  its  sequel,  should  not  have  led  to  changes 
and  reforms.  No  public  punishment  of  officials  followed 
the  trial.  The  Judge,  whose  conduct  would,  in  most  other 
countries,  have  been  felt  to  have  compromised  the  reputation 
of  the  Bench,  was  shortly  afterwards  promoted  and  presently 
died  amid  general  esteem.  The  position  of  the  Foreign 
Minister,  Count  Aehrenthal,  was  not  appreciably  shaken 
either  by  the  course  of  the  trial  or  by  Professor  Masaryk's 
exposure  in  the  Delegations  of  the  source  of  the  forged 
documents.  The  validity  of  Kiirnberger's  principle  that 
the  best  way  to  consolidate  the  position  of  culpable  officials 
is  to  expose  them  publicly,  because  exposure  engages  the 
amour  propre  of  the  whole  bureaucratic  caste  and  makes  it 


THE  STATE  105 

a  point  of  honour  that  unofficial  influences  shall  not  triumph, 
was  once  again  vindicated.  True,  some  bureaucratic  changes 
were  eventually  made.  The  official  in  charge  of  the  Foreign 
Office  Press  Bureau,  who  is  alleged  to  have  expressed 
doubts  as  to  the  authenticity  of  the  documents  from  the 
beginning,  was  placed  on  the  retired  list,  ostensibly  for 
having  failed  to  stop  the  publication  of  Dr.  Friedjung's 
article  in  the  Neue  Freie  Presse  at  the  last  moment  when 
events  had  rendered  its  publication  inopportune  ;  and  the 
Austro-Hungarian  Minister  at  Belgrade  was  transferred  to 
a  minor  German  capital.  These  measures,  however,  escaped 
the  notice  of  the  general  public,  which  was  and  is  too 
indifferent  towards  such  matters  or,  perhaps,  too  conscious 
of  its  own  impotence,  to  trouble  greatly  about  original 
causes  and  ulterior  effects.  As  one  satirical  writer  remarked, 
"  When  the  press  cried,  '  Austria  is  menaced  by  the  Serbo- 
Croatian  conspiracy,'  the  crowd  answered  '  Indeed  ! '  and 
when  the  press  presently  declared,  '  Austria  was  not  at  all 
in  danger  ! '  the  crowd  answered  '  Really  ;  Indeed  ! ' " 


THE  CHURCH 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Austrian  State  system  fits  the 
character  of  the  people  as  an  old  shoe  fits  the  foot,  and,  like 
an  old  shoe,  reveals  its  defects  only  when  the  weather  is  bad. 
The  Austrians,  and  especially  the  Viennese,  prefer  to  jog 
along  comfortably  and  to  let  the  State  manage  their  affairs 
for  them.  They  grumble  and  carp,  but  their  grumbling  is 
rarely  serious.  Earnestness  bores  them.  The  artistic  tem- 
perament of  the  people  and  the  efforts  long  and  consistently 
made  by  the  Government  to  encourage  "  amusements  "  and 
to  discourage  interest  in  intellectual  pursuits  and  in  ques- 
tions of  public  import,  have  combined  to  produce  a  sceptical 
indifference  that  still  seems  to  preclude  sustained  effort  or 
action.  Yet  one  feeling  lies  deep  in  Austrian  hearts — the 
old  Imperial  pride  that  has  never  quite  lost  faith  in  Austrian 


io6  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

destinies,  and  only  awaits  some  real  or  apparent  success 
to  blaze  forth  again  in  all  its  ancient  intensity.  For  the 
same  reason,  insults  and  disparagement  are  rarely  forgotten 
or  forgiven.  Criticism  on  the  part  of  foreign  and  even  of 
Austrian  writers  is  apt  to  be  regarded  as  hostility.  True, 
Austrians  are  wont  to  answer  inquiries  why  this  or  that  has 
not  been  done  in  Austria  by  saying,  "  Wir  sind  in  Oster- 
reich  ;  wir  sind  noch  nicht  so  weit "  (We  are  in  Austria ;  we 
are  not  yet  so  far  advanced) ;  but  the  prudent  foreigner  who 
demurs  to  this  self-depreciation,  and  praises,  as  he  can  do 
with  sincerity,  the  many  virtues  of  the  Austrian  character, 
will  soon  strike  a  responsive  chord  and  get  a  glimpse  into 
the  recesses  of  the  Austrian  heart.  Humility  and  self- 
depreciation  will  then  be  recognized  as  de  Vorgueil  rentrt, 
and  the  force  of  the  saying  of  a  shrewd  Frenchwoman,  "  Les 
Autrichiens  n'ont  jamais  tort,"  will  be  realized.  The  general 
fear  of  ridicule,  or  of  what  is  called  Blamage  or  "  loss  of  face," 
proceeds  from  this  source,  as  does  much  of  the  reluctance 
in  private  individuals  and  officials  to  own  to  a  mistake  or 
publicly  to  redress  an  injury.  The  superior  moral  courage 
that  admits  an  error  and  repairs  it  spontaneously  is  little 
appreciated.  While  physically  brave  and  often  accustomed 
to  effort  and  hardship,  the  average  Austrian  is  singularly 
lacking  in  moral  hardihood  and  in  steadfastness  of  moral 
purpose.  Nor  is  it  easy  to  see  how  the  defect  can  be  removed. 
The  Church,  which  might  be  an  instrument  for  the  moral 
elevation  of  the  people,  uses  its  influence  partly  in  the 
service  of  the  State  and  partly  to  promote  its  own  political 
objects.  Despite  the  increase  of  Ultramontane  clericalism 
since  the  days  of  Joseph  and  Leopold,  the  spirit  that  inspired 
Leopold's  decree  of  March  3,  1792,  is  still  strong:  "Though 
the  priest  be  a  shepherd  of  souls,  as  he  should  always  be,  yet 
he  must  be  regarded  not  only  as  a  priest  and  a  citizen  but 
also  as  an  official  of  the  State  in  the  Church,  since  the 
administration  of  the  care  of  souls  has  unlimited  influence 
upon  the  sentiments  of  the  people,  and  participates  directly 
or  indirectly  in  the  most  important  political  matters."  The 


THE  STATE  107 

Church  in  Austria  is  less  a  State  Church  than  an  ecclesi- 
astical department  of  the  State,  working  like  the  army,  the 
bureaucracy,  and  the  police  in  the  interests  of  "  government." 
When  the  Church  contrives  to  capture  the  reigning  monarch 
and  to  make  him  subordinate  the  influence  of  the  dynasty 
to  priestly  ends,  it  becomes  all-powerful.  Such  a  monarch 
was  Ferdinand  II.  (1619—37),  who  was  mainly  an  instru- 
ment of  the  Jesuit  Counter -Reformation.  Monarchs  like 
Maria  Theresa  and  Joseph  II.,  on  the  other  hand,  reduced 
the  Church  to  the  position  of  a  dynastic  tool,  kept  Rome  at 
arm's  length,  and  organized  the  "  religious  police."  Even 
under  the  Emperors  Francis  and  Ferdinand  (1792—1848) 
Ultramontanism  made  little  progress,  despite  the  return  of 
the  expelled  Jesuits  and  of  their  "  straw  men  "  the  Redemp- 
torists.  Ultramontane  clerics  were  simply  denied  promotion, 
and  Bishops  and  Archbishops  were  chosen  for  their  dynastic 
sentiments.  Notwithstanding  Metternich's  predilection  for  the 
Roman  Curia,  the  police,  in  the  later  'forties,  once  sent  back 
to  Rome  a  whole  boxful  of  Roman  breviaries,  because  one  of 
Joseph  II.'s  ordinances  had  forbidden  their  use  in  Austria. 
Indeed,  the  influence  of  Joseph's  ecclesiastical  reforms  lasted 
until  the  dynasty  and  the  State  capitulated  to  Rome  in 
1855  by  the  conclusion  of  the  Concordat,  the  Emperor 
Francis  Joseph's  twenty-fifth  birthday  gift  to  his  peoples. 
Francis  Joseph  lived,  however,  to  sanction  the  destruction  of 
the  Concordat  and  to  restrict  Clerical  influence  over  education 
which  the  Concordat  had  made  supreme.  During  the  later 
'sixties  and  the  'seventies  he  re-established  the  supremacy  of 
the  State  and  reduced  the  Church  once  more  to  a  position 
of  dependence.  In  the  Conclave  of  1903  he  commanded 
Cardinal  Puzyna,  Archbishop  of  Cracow,  to  pronounce  the 
Imperial  Veto  against  the  election  of  Cardinal  Rampolla, 
who  had  incurred  the  political  displeasure  of  the  Triple 
Alliance,  and  whose  elevation  to  the  chair  of  St.  Peter  as 
successor  of  Leo  XIII.  was  thought  politically  undesirable 
— a  proceeding  unspeakably  offensive  to  the  consciences  of 
devout  Catholics  who  believe  the  selection  of  the  Vicar  of 


io8  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

Christ  to  be  inspired  by  the  Holy  Spirit.  Despite  Cardinal 
Rampolla's  dignified  protest,  the  Princes  of  the  Church 
nevertheless  bowed  to  the  Hapsburg  dictate,  though  Pope 
Pius  X.  felt  moved  to  ordain  that  any  Cardinal  who  may  in 
future  attempt  to  repeat  the  veto  shall  be  placed  under  the 
major  ban.  Cardinal  Puzyna  is  credibly  reported  to  have 
been  astounded  that  the  Sacred  College  should  have  resented 
the  violence  done  to  it  in  the  exercise  of  its  highest  functions 
— so  profoundly  is  the  Austro-Hungarian  Episcopacy  pene- 
trated by  the  spirit  of  subservience  to  the  dynasty  !  Some- 
thing like  a  revolt  against  State  and  dynastic  control  of 
the  Church  was  noticeable  during  the  earlier  phases  of 
the  Christian  Social  movement.  The  minor  clergy  broke 
away  from  the  political  domination  of  the  Bishops  and 
developed  a  semi-Socialist,  semi-Ultramontane  spirit.  But 
in  1907  the  Conservative-Clerical  or  "Bishop's"  party  amal- 
gamated with  the  Christian  Social  party  in  the  Reichsrath 
and,  stooping  to  conquer,  accepted  the  Christian  Social 
name  in  order  to  leaven  the  whole  lump  with  the  old  con- 
servative sentiment.  Even  the  Eucharistic  Congress  held  at 
Vienna  in  September  1912  bore  witness  to  the  predominance 
of  dynastic  over  ecclesiastical  feeling  in  Austria.  The 
Emperor  and  the  Imperial  family  associated  themselves 
intimately  with  the  Congress,  which  gradually  became  an 
apotheosis  of  Hapsburg  Catholicism ;  and,  during  the 
Eucharistic  procession  that  closed  the  proceedings,  far 
greater  homage  was  done  by  the  people  of  Vienna  to  the 
Emperor  and  to  the  Imperial  family  than  to  the  Host 
which  the  Emperor  and  the  Heir-Apparent  followed,  sitting 
bareheaded  in  their  State  Coach,  through  the  streets  of  the 
Capital. 

The  Austrian  ideal  would  therefore  seem  to  be  far 
removed  from  Cavour's  formula,  "  A  free  Church  in  a  free 
State,"  which  the  Roman  Curia  has  lately  come  to  regard  as 
a  lesser  evil  than  that  of  a  subservient  Church  in  an  omni- 
potent State.  When  Joseph  II.  claimed  to  have  established 
the  "  freedom  of  the  Church,"  he  meant  the  freedom  of  the 


THE  STATE  109 

Church  from  Rome.  He  severed,  indeed,  all  regular  com- 
munication between  the  Austrian  episcopate  and  the  Pope, 
and,  while  proclaiming  religious  toleration  and  removing 
many  of  the  disabilities  previously  imposed  on  Protestants 
and  Jews,  he  placed  the  Roman  Catholic  clergy  under  a 
system  of  State  control  that  set  an  indelible  mark  upon 
them.  No  definite  solution  has  ever  been  found  nor  will, 
perhaps,  ever  be  found  for  the  problem  of  regulating  the 
relationship  between  the  Roman  Church  and  the  political 
Authorities  of  the  countries  in  which  it  works  ;  but,  of  all 
possible  relationships,  the  worst  is  that  which  makes  of  the 
clergy  the  spiritual  gendarmes  of  the  State.  A  cultured 
and  philosophical  Austrian  statesman,  profoundly  religious  in 
temperament,  used  to  argue  that  the  Lutheran  Reformation 
had  vitiated  the  whole  position  of  the  Church  by  inspiring 
her  with  such  fear  of  destruction  that,  in  order  to  save  what 
could  yet  be  saved,  she  sold  her  soul  to  Temporal  Powers. 
Whereas,  prior  to  the  Reformation,  the  Church  was  never 
entirely  subjugated  by  the  Emperors  and  Kings  with  whom 
she  was  now  at  variance  and  now  in  alliance,  and  was  always 
in  a  position  to  fulfil,  well  or  ill,  her  mission  of  protecting 
the  weak  and  the  lowly  against  the  tyranny  of  feudal 
monarchs  and  lords,  she  became,  after  the  Reformation,  the 
handmaid  of  Emperors  and  Kings  on  condition  that  they 
should  lend  her  their  aid  in  extirpating  heresy.  Since  then 
she  has  too  often  appeared  to  be  the  ally  of  the  oppressor 
against  the  oppressed,  and  to  care  less  for  the  saving  of 
souls  by  the  power  of  the  Gospel  than  for  the  crushing  of 
heresy  by  the  power  of  the  State.  As  far  as  Austria  and 
Spain  are  concerned  this  theory  holds  good.  The  Jesuits, 
who  were  the  apostles  of  the  Counter- Reformation,  strove 
successfully  to  inspire  and  control  the  actions  of  fanatical 
monarchs,  careless  whether  in  so  doing  they  inflicted  suffering 
and  misery  upon  millions  of  human  beings.  Despite  their 
many  admirable  qualities  and  exemplary  discipline,  the 
Jesuits,  who,  in  this  as  in  other  respects,  bear  a  strong 
mental  resemblance  to  the  Jews,  seem  incapable  of  under- 


no  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

standing  that,  beyond  a  certain  point,  the  friction  engendered 
by  aggressive  action  must  not  only  check  their  advance,  but 
end  by  creating  a  resistance  which  is  apt  to  develop  into 
violent  reaction.  Their  spirit  of  domination  provokes  revolt, 
their  casuistical  methods  tend  to  produce  scepticism  even 
among  their  adepts,  and  the  overweening  confidence  that 
comes  of  initial  success  and  of  faith  in  their  own  superiority 
produces  a  short-sightedness  fatal  to  the  most  carefully  laid 
plans.  To  speak  of  the  Jesuits  en  bloc  is  to  court  the 
reproach  of  uncritical  generalization.  There  are  numerous 
varieties  of  Jesuit,  each  entrusted  with  some  special  work, 
and  appearing  rarely  to  justify  the  accusations  frequently 
directed  against  the  Company  of  Jesus  as  a  whole.  Many 
Jesuits  whose  exemplary  lives  and  earnest  faith  attract  to  or 
retain  within  the  Roman  fold  souls  that  would  otherwise 
look  in  vain  for  a  spiritual  refuge,  are  themselves  unaware 
of  the  policy  of  the  Order  to  which  they  belong  and  of  the 
principles  on  which  it  is  based.  Nothing  is  more  tragic  than 
when  such  Jesuits  awaken  to  the  veritable  situation  and  are 
confronted  with  the  alternatives  of  suffering  in  silence  or  of 
severing  themselves  from  the  body  to  which  they  had  hoped 
to  devote  their  lives.  One  such  wrote  to  the  present  writer 
shortly  after  making  his  choice  :  "  I  had  come  to  the  con- 
clusion and  had  presented  it  to  the  General  (of  the  Jesuits) 
that  '  Jesuitism '  summed  up  all  the  maladies  from  which  the 
Roman  Church  is  slowly  dying — Jesuitism  in  the  Society  of 
Jesus  and  outside  it ;  for  it  stands  for  a  set  of  principles 
rather  than  for  the  Society  which  is  specially  devoted  to 
their  propagation."  In  Austria  it  is  a  fact  that  the  personal 
moral  standard  and  the  individual  efficiency  of  Jesuits  are 
considerably  higher  than  those  of  the  members  of  other 
religious  orders,  and  it  is,  to  say  the  least,  a  singular  circum- 
stance that  the  Jesuits  and  Redemptorists  in  Austria,  unlike 
the  members  of  other  Orders,  are  not  as  a  rule  Austrian 
subjects,  but  natives  of  the  Rhine  Provinces,  Alsace-Lorraine, 
or  Bavaria.  They  would  therefore  be  unhampered  by  any 
patriotic  or  dynastic  loyalty,  even  had  not  the  training  to 


THE  STATE  in 

which  they  are  subjected  removed  from  their  minds  the 
sentiment  of  patriotism  or,  at  least,  substituted  for  it  the 
feeling,  Ubi  Ecclesia  ibi  Patria.  They  are,  in  a  special  sense, 
the  missionaries  of  Rome  and  the  apostles  of  Ultramontanism ; 
that  is  to  say,  of  the  subordination  of  local  patriotic  con- 
siderations to  the  dictates  of  the  Pope  who,  in  his  turn,  is 
usually  subject  to  the  influence  of  the  Regular  Clergy,  and 
more  often  than  not  to  that  of  the  Jesuits.  In  Austria, 
Jesuit  influence  has  been  steadily  directed  towards  the  pro- 
pagation of  the  Ultramontane  spirit.  Two  of  the  best 
educational  institutions — Kalksburg  and  Feldkirch — are  in 
their  hands.  Their  pupils  are  invariably  polished,  well- 
mannered  youths  whose  natural  aptitudes  have  been  de- 
veloped in  "  desirable "  directions,  and  who  are,  as  a  rule, 
capable  of  filling  with  distinction  any  post  to  which  they 
may  be  appointed — but  incapable  of  taking  any  independent 
decision  on  matters  of  moment.  Jesuit  education  tends  to 
develop  talent,  not  character ;  to  fashion  efficient  and  un- 
obtrusive instruments,  not  autonomous  individualities ;  the 
young  men  trained  are  never  lost  sight  of,  and,  so  long 
as  they  remain  obedient  and  useful,  enjoy  protection  and 
rapid  advancement.  By  these  means  Jesuit  influence  in 
State  affairs  is  rendered  far  greater  than  it  appears  to  be  on 
the  surface,  and  is,  in  fact,  comparable  only  to  the  surrep- 
titious influence  exercised  by  the  Jews.  A  French  historian 
whose  theoretical  knowledge  of  Europe  is  incomparable 
declared  not  long  since  that  "  1'Autriche  est  entierement 
gatee,  d'abord  par  les  Jesuites,  ensuite  par  des  Juifs." 
Whether  Austria  is  in  reality  "  totally  spoiled "  is  a  very 
open  question  ;  but,  could  the  learned  historian  obtain  closer 
experience  of  Austrian  affairs,  he  might  indeed  see  the  Jesuit 
and  the  Jewish  influences  apparently  paramount,  now  oppos- 
ing, now  supplementing,  but  always  comprehending  each 
other  in  virtue  of  a  singular  psychological  affinity.  Both 
are  supremely  teleological,  or,  to  employ  a  less  technical 
expression,  both  have  their  eye  constantly  fixed  on  the 
"  main  chance,"  the  immediate  object,  be  it  money,  power, 


H2  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

or  the  two  in  conjunction.  But  neither  can  count  upon 
lasting  success  unless  they  can  control  the  State  and,  in  the 
last  resort,  the  mind  of  the  reigning  Monarch. 

With  few  exceptions,  Hapsburg  monarchs  have,  how- 
ever, tended  to  revolt  against  attempts  to  control  their 
action.  While  munificent  towards  the  clergy  and  apparently 
subservient  to  the  Church,  the  Hapsburgs  have,  since  the 
reign  of  Maximilian  I.,  held  fast  to  their  right  of  control- 
ling ecclesiastical  appointments  and  enunciations.  Even 
Ferdinand  II.,  the  creature  and  instrument  of  the  Jesuits, 
was  obliged  in  several  instances  to  place  his  duties  as 
monarch  above  his  inclinations  as  a  fanatic.  Leopold  I., 
Joseph  I.,  and  also  Charles  VI.,  utilized  the  Placetum  Regium 
in  a  manner  not  always  agreeable  to  Rome.  In  Maria 
Theresa  the  "  State  idea  "  gradually  prevailed  over  obedience 
to  Rome  though  she  remained,  in  all  private  respects,  a 
devoted  daughter  of  the  Church.  The  starting-point  of  the 
predominance  of  State  over  Church  in  Austria  was  the 
appearance  of  the  veritably  epoch-making  book  of  "Justus 
Febronius"  (Johann  von  Hontheim,  Bishop -Suffragan  of 
Treves),  Concerning  the  Ecclesiastical  State  and  the 
Rightful  Power  of  the  Roman  Pope.  In  1764  Kaunitz 
induced  Maria  Theresa  and  the  Council  of  State  to  forbid 
the  publication  in  Austria  of  Clement  XIII.'s  Bull  in  favour  of 
the  Jesuits,  whose  position  was  then  threatened  in  France  ; 
and  in  1770  the  Cardinal-Bishop  of  Constance  reported  to 
Clement  XIV.  that,  in  Austria,  opposition  to  the  prevailing 
Constitution  and  administration  of  the  Church  extended 
from  the  lowest  classes  up  to  the  Ministers  of  State. 
Whether  or  not  there  be  truth  in  the  statements  of  some 
historians  that  Maria  Theresa  was  finally  turned  against  the 
Jesuits  by  the  chance  discovery  that  her  confessions  had 
been  written  out  and  sent  to  Rome  by  her  Jesuit  confessor, 
it  is  certain  that  her  attention  had  been  attracted  from  1757 
onwards  to  the  insubordination  of  the  Company  of  Jesus,  its 
progressive  monopolization  of  education,  and  its  influence 
over  the  secular  clergy.  The  Jesuits  had,  moreover,  bitter 


THE  STATE  113 

enemies  in  the  Benedictines  and,  among  the  younger  orders, 
in  the  Piarists,  no  less  than  in  the  Freemasons  whose  secret 
influence  began  to  make  itself  felt.  Therefore  when  in  1773 
Pope  Ganganelli  (Clement  XIV.)  suppressed  the  Jesuits,  the 
Austrian  Government  lost  no  time  in  sanctioning  the  publica- 
tion of  the  Papal  decree.  The  Archbishop  of  Vienna, 
Migazzi,  informed  the  Viennese  Jesuits  of  their  suppression 
in  the  presence  of  an  Imperial  commissioner  and,  in  the 
following  year,  the  Jesuit  property  was  seized.  A  militant 
"  Apology "  for  the  Jesuits,  published  in  Hungary,  was 
burned.  The  blow  thus  struck  at  the  Company  of  Jesus  was 
heavy.  In  Hungary  alone  it  possessed  twenty-three  colleges 
and  residences  while  in  Vienna  it  had  six  institutes  apart 
from  its  control  of  the  University.  But  it  was  the  less  able 
to  withstand  the  blow  in  that  it  had  gradually  become  an 
intolerant,  arrogant  organization  as  devoid  of  mental 
elasticity  as  of  spiritual  earnestness  and  caring  only  to 
maintain  its  own  domination  and  the  outward  form  of 
respect  for  the  Church. 

Before  the  Jesuits  could  return  to  Austria  under  the 
Emperor  Francis  and  begin  again  the  work  of  extending 
their  influence  during  the  era  of  the  Holy  Alliance,  the 
ecclesiastical  and  administrative  reforms  of  Joseph  II.  had 
radically  changed  the  internal  conditions  of  the  Monarchy. 
Joseph's  Toleration  Edict  of  1781  and  his  further  edicts  of 
1784-85  had  curtailed  the  power  of  the  Church,  cut  off 
the  Bishops  from  Rome  and  restricted  their  authority  over 
their  sees  and  their  clergy.  More  than  six  hundred  religious 
houses  had  been  dissolved  and  the  number  of  monks  reduced 
to  about  two  thousand.  The  Religious  Orders  had  been 
placed  under  strict  surveillance,  remittances  of  money  to 
Rome  had  been  forbidden  and  no  Austrian  was  allowed  to 
study  at  the  German  College  in  Rome.  The  Placetum 
Regium  was  vigorously  enforced  and  the  Papal  Bulls  In 
Coena  Domini  and  Unigenitus,  defining  the  prerogatives  of 
the  Holy  See,  were  not  allowed  to  be  published  in  Austria 
or  taught.  With  the  revenue  of  the  ecclesiastical  property 

I 


H4  THE   HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

that  had  been  seized  Joseph  formed  a  Religionsfonds  for  the 
maintenance  of  the  clergy.  This  fund  still  contributes 
nearly  9  per  cent  to  ecclesiastical  revenue  in  Austria.  Like 
his  administrative  reforms,  the  ecclesiastical  reforms  of 
Joseph  survived  him  and  remained  in  many  respects 
unchanged  till  after  the  Revolution  of  1848. 

Few  institutions  in  modern  Austria  can  be  understood 
without  reference  at  once  to  the  reign  of  Joseph  II.  and 
to  the  Revolution  of  1848.  The  effect  of  the  Revolution 
upon  the  not  illiberal  mind  of  Francis  Joseph,  who  ascended 
the  throne  on  December  2,  1848,  has  never  been  quite 
obliterated ;  and  the  reaction  against  the  influences  that 
were  believed  to  have  caused  the  Revolution  or,  at  least,  to 
have  failed  to  prevent  it,  was  largely  a  conscious  reaction 
against  "  Josephinism."  In  no  sphere  was  this  reaction  so 
successful  as  in  ecclesiastical  affairs.  The  view  was  pro- 
pagated, and  was  strongly  held  by  some  members  of  the 
Imperial  family,  that,  if  the  Church  as  well  as  the  Army,  the 
Police  and  the  Bureaucracy  had  failed  to  avert  the  Revolution, 
it  was  mainly  because  religion  had  been  made  for  seventy 
years  an  instrument  of  Government  and  had,  in  consequence, 
lost  its  hold  upon  the  people.  This  view,  encouraged  by 
Jesuit  and  other  Ultramontane  influences,  found  acceptance 
also  with  the  Austrian  Minister,  Count  Leo  Thun,  who,  with 
the  help  of  the  Archbishop  of  Vienna,  Mgr.  Rauscher,  one  of 
the  Emperor's  tutors,  and  with  the  acquiescence  of  Alexander 
Bach,  concluded  in  1855  a  Concordat  with  Rome  by  which 
education,  marriage  and  numerous  other  matters  were  placed 
under  the  control  of  the  Church.  The  Placetum  Regium  was 
abolished,  the  Bishops  were  allowed  free  intercourse  with 
Rome,  their  right  was  recognized  to  enforce  their  authority 
over  the  diocesan  Clergy  with  the  help  of  the  State,  and  the 
Church  was  rendered,  for  the  first  time  since  the  reign  of 
Ferdinand  II.,  the  mistress  of  the  whole  body-politic.  The 
Concordat  proceeded  from  a  conference  of  Bishops  held  at 
Vienna  in  May  and  June  1849  and  was,  in  fact,  virtually  in 
force  for  some  years  before  its  actual  conclusion.  In  1852 


THE  STATE  115 

the  territory  of  the  Monarchy  was  once  more  officially 
opened  to  the  Jesuits  who  had  been  allowed  to  return 
surreptitiously  and  had  been  tolerated  since  the  reign  of 
Francis.  Signed  on  August  18,  1855,  the  twenty-fifth 
birthday  of  the  Emperor  Francis  Joseph  who,  under  the 
influence  of  Mgr.  Rauscher,  had  taken  a  considerable  part  in 
its  conclusion,  the  Concordat  was  hailed  by  the  official  press 
as  "  the  veritable  Constitution  of  Austria  and  much  better 
than  any  other  Constitution."  Abroad,  and  by  the  more 
enlightened  subjects  of  Francis  Joseph,  it  was  regarded  as 
an  absolute  capitulation  of  the  State  to  the  Church  and,  in 
commenting  upon  it,  the  Times  declared  that  "  a  Crown 
worn  under  such  conditions  is  not  worth  the  metal  of  which 
it  is  made."  The  Austrian  police  strove  to  prevent  any 
echo  of  foreign  opinion  from  reaching  Austrian  ears  and 
sought  to  propagate  the  official  view  that  the  Concordat  was 
"  an  act  of  exalted  State  wisdom."  But,  in  point  of  fact,  the 
Concordat,  like  so  many  apparent  changes  in  Austria,  affected 
rather  the  form  than  the  substance  of  things.  Bach,  the 
former  revolutionary  and  now  a  deliberately  Clerical  minister, 
was  convinced  that  the  conclusion  of  the  Concordat  was  an 
excellent  police  expedient  which  would  give  to  the  State  a 
spiritual  gendarmerie,  more  numerous  and  more  devoted  than 
that  organized  by  Joseph  II.  and  less  discredited  because 
working  with  apparent  freedom  in  the  interests  of  religion 
and  of  the  Church.  The  State  doubtless  incurred  greater 
risks  under  the  Concordat  than  under  the  system  of  Joseph 
II.,  but  never  felt  itself  to  have  lost  its  power  again  to 
curtail  the  privileges  of  its  spiritual  police  in  case  the  clergy 
should  exceed  the  functions  they  were  meant  to  perform. 
The  recognition  by  the  State  in  the  Concordat  of  the 
"  imprescriptible  rights  proceeding  from  the  Divine  origin  of 
the  Church  "  formed  merely  a  clause  in  a  contract  which — 
despite  its  "  perpetual "  nature  and  its  promulgation  as  a 
Constitutional  Law — the  State,  that  is  to  say  the  Monarch, 
felt  free  to  denounce  and  discard  at  any  moment  as  he  had 
discarded  the  various  civil  Constitutions  of  1848-49. 


n6  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

Thus  even  at  the  moment  of  its  apparent  omnipotence, 
the  Church  in  Austria  never  ceased  to  be  the  handmaid  of 
the  Crown.  The  Vatican  which  may  have  deluded  itself 
into  believing  that  it  had  acquired  complete  control  of 
Austrian  affairs  was  rudely  undeceived  when,  twelve  years 
later,  on  the  establishment  of  the  Dual  System  in  1 867,  the 
German  Liberal  party  gained  ascendency  and  destroyed 
one  by  one  the  provisions  of  the  Concordat.  On  July  30, 
1870,  the  Emperor  addressed  to  his  Chancellor,  Count 
Beust,  a  rescript  declaring  that  the  dogma  of  Papal 
Infallibility  had  destroyed  the  Concordat  since  the  Infallible 
Head  of  the  Church  could  not  be  bound  by  a  contract. 
Four  years  later  this  ordinance  was  supplemented  by  laws 
formally  annulling  the  Concordat,  regulating  ecclesiastical 
autonomy  and  determining  the  limits  beyond  which 
ecclesiastical  interference  would  be  an  encroachment  upon 
the  inviolable  rights  of  the  State.  Not  until  the  later 
'nineties  did  the  Church  begin  to  recover  the  ground  it  thus 
lost  The  w  Los  von  Rom,"  or  rather  "  Los  von  Habsburg  " 
movement  which  was  organized  among  the  Pan-Germans 
and  Liberal  Germans  of  Austria  as  a  protest  against  Badeni's 
ordinances  placing  the  Czech  on  a  footing  of  equality  with 
the  German  language  in  Bohemia,  led  to  the  formation  of 
clerical  societies,  notably  the  Societies  of  St  Boniface  and 
St  Raphael,  to  combat  anti-Catholic  and  anti-Hapsburg 
tendencies  and  to  support  a  German  race- movement  on 
Catholic  lines.  The  Heir-Apparent,  Archduke  Francis 
Ferdinand,  accepted  the  protectorship  of  a  Catholic 
Schulverein  or  Schools  Association  ;  Dr.  Lueger  and  his 
Christian  Social  followers  attacked  the  preponderance  of 
anti-Clerical  and  Jewish  influence  in  the  Universities ;  and 
subsequently  the  Piusverein  was  founded  to  support  the 
Catholic  anti-Jewish  press,  several  of  whose  organs  gradually 
acquired  considerable  circulation  and  influence. 

But  here  again,  it  was  evident  that  the  Church  was  ful- 
filling rather  the  functions  of  voluntary  police  in  the  interest 
of  the  dynasty  than  ecclesiastical  functions  proper.  The 


THE  STATE  117 

"  Los  von  Rom  "  peril  having  been  warded  off,  the  Clerical 
organizations  engaged  in  a  violent  and  sometimes  thoroughly 
unscrupulous  campaign  against  Social  Democracy  whose 
progress  had  inspired  uneasiness  in  the  highest  quarters. 
The  greatest  achievement  of  these  organizations  was  un- 
doubtedly the  arrangement  of  the  Eucharist  Congress 
at  Vienna  in  September  1912,  which  was  rendered  an 
apotheosis  for  the  Emperor  and  the  Imperial  family.  Those 
foreign  Churchmen  who  saw  only  the  enthusiastic  devotion 
of  masses  of  Hapsburg  subjects  to  the  Dynasty  under  the 
aegis  of  the  Church  departed,  as  it  was  intended  they  should 
depart,  with  the  impression  that  in  the  Hapsburg  Monarchy 
the  Church  lives  and  thrives  under  the  best  of  conceivable 
conditions  ;  but  foreign  priests  and  prelates  who  knew  more 
of  the  workaday  life  of  Austria  and  of  the  true  position  of 
the  Church,  shook  their  heads  sadly  at  the  thought  that 
religious  organizations  had  once  more  been  utilized  to  pro- 
mote the  mundane  ends  of  an  ancient  dynasty  which  keeps 
the  Church  in  leash.  In  few  countries  has  the  Church  so 
little  grip  upon  the  daily  lives  of  the  people  as  in  Austria- 
Hungary.  The  condition  of  the  clergy  itself  in  many 
provinces  would  be  considered  scandalous  had  it  not  come 
to  be  regarded  as  normal  The  system  of  Joseph  II.  which 
tended  to  transform  the  clergy  into  a  body  of  civil  servants, 
and  the  enormous  revenues  still  enjoyed  by  many  bishops, 
archbishops  and  religious  houses,  have  combined  to  pro- 
duce a  type  of  ecclesiastic  bent  rather  on  securing  lucrative 
appointments  than  on  fulfilling  a  spiritual  vocation — a  type 
not  unlike  that  which  existed  throughout  Central  Europe  in 
the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries.  Laxity  of  morals  is 
widespread.  Practically  only  the  Jesuits  and  the  Redemp- 
torists  are  above  any  general  reproach  on  this  score,  but  the 
Augustinian  Canons  of  Klosterneuburg,  St  Florian  and 
Vorau  ;  the  Cistercians  of  Heiligenkreuz,  Lilienfeld  and  other 
monasteries,  the  Premonstratensians  of  Tepl  and  Wilten ; 
the  Benedictines  of  Melk,  Kremsmlinster  and  Admont ;  the 
teaching  order  of  the  Piarists  and  the  Barnabites  are  all,  in 


n8  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

greater  or  less  degree,  open  to  well-founded  suspicion  of 
interpreting  their  vows  with  self-indulgent  latitude.  More- 
over, a  large  number  of  parishes  are  served  by  members  of 
these  Orders — with  results  the  reverse  of  edifying.  The 
monasteries  themselves  remain  principally  in  the  hands  of 
elderly  monks  whose  lives  are  rather  those  of  "  holy  friars  " 
in  the  sense  of  the  old  English  song,  than  monastic  in  the 
veritable  sense  of  the  term.  If  the  influence  of  the  clergy 
upon  the  morals  of  a  people  can  be  tested  by  the  illegitimate 
birth-rate — a  test  not  invariably  reliable — it  would  show  the 
influence  of  the  Austrian  clergy  to  be  extremely  defective. 
In  cities  like  Vienna  it  is  estimated  to  be  20  per  cent, 
in  thoroughly  Clerical  centres  like  Brixen  in  the  Tyrol  it  is 
so  high  as  to  shock  foreign  ecclesiastical  visitors,  and  in 
Carinthia  it  is  41  per  cent.  In  Croatia  and  in  some  parts 
of  Hungary  the  clergy  seem  to  consider  the  vow  of  celibacy 
to  be  alone  valid.  But,  at  the  same  time,  outward  respect 
for  religion  is  strong,  men  almost  invariably  raise  their  hats 
and  women  cross  themselves  on  passing  a  Church,  and  when, 
some  years  ago,  a  petition  in  favour  of  divorce  obtained 
70,000  signatures,  the  clergy  had  no  difficulty  in  presenting 
a  counter  petition  with  4,500,000  signatures. 

The  supreme  test  of  the  vitality  of  a  religious  organiza- 
tion— that  of  being  thrown  entirely  on  its  own  resources  and 
of  being  obliged  to  hold  its  own  or  conquer  new  ground  by  the 
power  of  its  doctrine  without  the  support  or  despite  the  hostility 
of  the  civil  authorities — is  unlikely  to  be  applied  to  the  Church 
in  Austria.  Despite  admirable  work  done  here  and  there  by 
some  categories  of  the  clergy,  notably  the  parish  priests  in 
congested  urban  and  in  sparsely  populated  mountain  dis- 
tricts, the  Church  seems  likely  to  remain  what  it  has  been 
for  centuries — an  institution  fulfilling  semi-political  functions 
and,  in  many  respects,  subordinating  its  evangelical  mission 
to  the  maintenance  of  its  privileges  ;  enjoying  fat  revenues 
(the  Archbishop  of  Olmiitz,  for  instance,  has  an  income  of 
^060,000  a  year  and  some  Hungarian  Sees  are  equally  well 
endowed)  and  serving  at  best  to  counteract  the  disintegrat- 


THE  STATE  119 

ing  tendencies  of  Jewish  and  pseudo- Liberal  elements. 
It,  like  the  Army,  the  Bureaucracy  and  the  Police, 
to  which  in  many  respects  it  is  allied  and  akin,  works 
as  an  instrument  of  the  State  and  an  appendix  of  the 
Dynasty. 


CHAPTER    III 

THE    PEOPLE 

THE  title  of  this  chapter  should  be  understood  in  its  broadest 
sense.  There  is,  in  reality,  no  Austrian,  Hungarian  or 
Austro- Hungarian  "people."  There  are  the  peoples  that 
inhabit  the  Monarchy,  Hapsburg  peoples,  but  no  Hapsburg 
people.  Whenever  the  Monarch  addresses  his  subjects  col- 
lectively, as  on  his  accession  or  on  the  outbreak  of  war  or  in 
connexion  with  some  festival  or  bereavement,  the  form  of 
address  is  always  "  To  my  Peoples."  In  a  sense  there  is 
nevertheless  a  "  people  "  in  the  Monarchy.  It  consists  of  the 
governed  as  distinct  from  the  apparatus  of  government,  the 
administered  as  distinguished  from  the  administration.  It  is 
supposed  to  be  represented  in  Parliament,  Diets  and  Muni- 
cipal Councils,  and  to  possess  a  means  of  utterance  in  the 
public  press.  But  the  press  is  largely  an  instrument  of 
Government  and  is  far  more  careful  of  its  official  connexions 
than  of  its  duty  to  the  people  ;  while  the  functions  veritably 
discharged  by  Parliament  differ  strangely  from  those  laid 
down  by  Constitutional  Law  and  defined  in  treatises  on 
popular  representation.  In  Austria,  at  least,  Parliament  is 
an  immense  club  where  representatives  of  all  nationalities 
meet,  jostle  and  sometimes  make  acquaintance  with  each 
other.  In  the  work  of  committees  and  commissions,  party 
conventicles  and  "  national,"  i.e.  racial  associations,  members 
of  Parliament  gain  a  practical  consciousness  that  Austria  is 
a  strange  medley  of  peoples  under  one  dynastic  head  and 
an  all-powerful  bureaucracy  ;  and,  despite  the  particularist 

120 


THE  PEOPLE  121 

standpoints  and  individual  interests  frequently  thrust  into 
prominence,  they  gradually  acquire  a  feeling  of  Zusam- 
mengehorigkeit  or  "  belonging  together."  In  Parliament,  the 
provincial  and  racial  views  of  Czechs  and  Germans  from 
Bohemia,  Germans  from  the  Alpine  lands,  Slovenes  from 
Carniola,  Croats  or  Italians  from  Istria,  Rumanes  from  the 
Bukowina,  Poles  or  Ruthenes  from  Galicia  and  Slovaks 
from  Moravia,  lose  something  of  their  angularity  in  contact 
with  the  mass  of  their  fellow -deputies.  Parliament,  in 
this  sense,  is  an  institute  for  political  education. 

In  another  sense  it  is  an  institute  for  political  corruption. 
The  Government,  composed  of  officials  appointed  by  the 
Emperor,  purchases  majorities  by  concessions  to  the  interests 
which  parties  represent  or  which  individual  party  leaders 
wish  to  further.  Railways,  canals,  bridges,  tobacco  licences 
for  constituents,  government  appointments  for  proteges,  and  a 
hundred  other  objects  of  local  or  individual  solicitude,  form 
the  object  of  the  KuhJiandel^  constantly  carried  on  between 
an  Austrian  Cabinet  and  the  members  not  only  of  its 
majority  but  also  of  the  opposition.  The  opposition  of 
to-day  may  form  part  of  the  majority  of  to-morrow  and,  in 
stormy  places  like  the  Austrian  Chamber,  it  is  always  well 
to  cast  an  anchor  to  windward.  The  Government  thus 
corrupts  the  political  consciences,  such  as  they  are,  of 
members  of  Parliament ;  and  the  latter,  profiting  by  instruc- 
tion, hasten,  both  as  individuals  and  as  parties,  to  extort 
political  blackmail  from  the  Government  and  the  permanent 
officials.  Apologists  of  the  Austrian  bureaucracy  ascribe 
many  of  its  shortcomings  to  the  constant  interference  of 
members  of  Parliament  with  the  regular  work  of  administra- 
tion ;  and  defenders  of  parliamentarism  in  its  purity,  ascribe 
many  of  the  defects  of  Austrian  parliamentarism  to  official 
intrigue  and  to  the  little  favours  habitually  .bestowed  by  the 
Government  upon  the  "  well-disposed."  In  any  case,  the 
present  system  is  a  circle  all  the  more  vicious  because  there 
are  no  strong  traditions  to  keep  officials  and  deputies  on 

1  Literally,  "cow-dealing." 


122  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

the   hither    side    of  the    line    beyond   which   complaisance 
becomes  complicity. 

Parliament,  nevertheless,  justifies  its  existence  by  provid- 
ing an  outlet  for  feelings  which  might  otherwise  remain  pent 
up  and  potentially  explosive.  Every  Austrian  race  is  able 
to  bring  its  desires  and  grievances  to  public  notice  through 
the  parliamentary  channel.  The  public  prosecutor,  the  police 
and  the  bureaucracy  are  powerless  to  prevent  such  utterances 
which,  having  been  made  under  parliamentary  privilege,  may 
be  reproduced  by  the  press  from  the  official  report  of  parlia- 
mentary proceedings  without  danger  of  confiscation  or  pro- 
secution. The  utility  of  this  safeguard  is  unquestionable. 
A  public  prosecutor,  inspired  by  zeal  for  his  conception  of 
public  welfare  or  anxious  to  improve  by  subserviency 
towards  his  superiors  his  chances  of  promotion  to  a  judge- 
ship,  may  order  the  confiscation  of  a  journal  whose  opinions 
or  allegations  appear  to  him  obnoxious.  The  confiscation  is 
rarely  followed  by  a  prosecution.  The  object  of  inflicting 
pecuniary  loss  upon  the  journal  is  attained  without  the 
troublesome  procedure  and  the  chances  of  discredit  that 
would  be  involved  in  a  public  trial.  If,  however,  the  confis- 
cated journal  has  the  ear  of  a  member  of  Parliament,  it  is 
able  to  secure  privilege  by  persuading  him  to  embody  the 
confiscated  matter  in  a  parliamentary  interpellation.  The 
journal  is  then  able  to  reproduce  its  confiscated  article  from 
the  parliamentary  reports  and  to  wave  it  under  the  nose  of 
the  public  prosecutor  and  the  police.  One  of  the  most 
striking  instances  of  this  procedure  was  furnished  some  years 
ago  by  the  confiscation  of  the  remarkable  booklet  Wien, 
by  Hermann  Bahr,  an  Austrian  -  German  writer  too  inde- 
pendently patriotic  to  find  favour  in  the  eyes  of  a  public 
prosecutor.  A  well-known  deputy  promptly  interpellated 
the  Government  upon  the  confiscation  and  read  aloud  to  the 
Chamber  the  whole  of  the  confiscated  matter.  Bahr  was 
consequently  able  to  issue  another  edition  of  his  booklet 
minus  the  confiscated  chapter  but  plus  the  text  of  the  inter- 
pellation. In  a  country  where  officials  regard  themselves 


THE  PEOPLE  123 

less  as  the  guardians  of  popular  rights  than  as  the  executive 
instruments  of  State  or  dynastic  authority,  such  a  check 
upon  petty  tyranny  is  exceedingly  wholesome. 

Nevertheless  the  value  of  Parliament  for  the  defence  of 
public  interests  and  liberties  is  often  limited  by  the  subtle  con- 
trol which  the  Government  and  its  agents  exercise  over  parties 
and  individual  members.  A  deputy  who  acquires  undesir- 
able prominence  as  a  critic  of  official  acts  or  whose  conduct 
the  "  well-disposed "  are  able  to  represent  as  "  unpatriotic," 
is  apt  to  find  his  opportunities  for  public  usefulness  circum- 
scribed in  every  quarter  within  the  reach  of  the  Government's 
long  arm.  The  larger  journals,  most  of  which  are  accessible 
to  "  influence,"  fail  to  report  his  speeches.  Less  able  men 
are  preferred  to  him  when  parliamentary  committees  have 
to  be  selected  ;  his  own  party  is  made  to  feel  that  the 
Government  will  be  well  pleased  if  he  is  kept  in  the  back- 
ground ;  and  on  important  occasions,  as  during  the  choice 
of  party  nominees  for  the  Delegations,  direct  official  pressure 
or  indirect  official  intrigue  may  be  employed  to  exclude  him. 
In  no  country  are  members  of  Parliament  invariably  men 
of  moral  courage.  In  Austria  the  percentage  of  heroes 
is  perhaps  lower  than  elsewhere,  not  necessarily  because 
Austrian  politicians  are  peculiarly  deficient  in  moral  stamina, 
but  because — with  the  exception  of  some  of  the  Slav  races 
— their  constituents  and  the  public  at  large  are  disinclined 
long  to  support  "unpopular"  deputies.  The  Austrian 
public  is,  moreover,  prone  to  suspect  that  politicians  who 
"  fly  in  the  face  of  Providence "  are  merely  trying  to 
advertise  themselves  and  to  screw  up  the  political  price 
that  must  eventually  be  paid  for  their  silence  or  support. 

To  all  these  rules  there  are  exceptions,  the  most  notable 
during  recent  years  having  been  that  of  Dr.  Lueger  who 
was  forced  upon  the  Emperor  as  Burgomaster  of  Vienna  by 
a  powerful  and  well-organized  popular  movement  after  the 
Emperor  had  repeatedly  declined  to  sanction  his  election. 
Lueger's  strength  lay  in  his  ability  to  appeal  to  the  rank 
and  file  of  his  fellow-citizens  and  in  their  well-founded 


124  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

conviction  that  he  was  personally  disinterested.  The  Social 
Democratic  party  has  also  produced  and  borne  aloft  men 
upon  whom  the  Court  and  official  circles  frowned  ;  though 
it  became  clear,  during  the  Universal  Suffrage  movement  of 
1905—7,  that  the  Court  and  the  Government  are  willing 
to  accept  as  allies  any  party  or  person  that  may  serve,  for 
the  time  being,  dynastic  ends.  Austria  is  essentially  a  land  of 
compromise  where  ideals  are  reserved  for  party  programmes 
and  public  declarations  but  where  the  working  principle  is 
so  to  arrange  matters  that,  in  the  words  of  the  Italian 
proverb,  both  the  goats  and  the  cabbages  may  be  saved. 
If,  as  a  result,  the  goats  are  only  half  fed  and  the  cabbage 
leaves  nibbled,  the  Government  has  no  cause  for  dissatisfac- 
tion. Equilibrium  of  discontent  often  seems  to  be  its  object. 
It  knows  that  among  the  discontented  jealousy  will  thrive, 
and  that  when  claims  for  further  concessions  are  advanced 
they  can  be  partly  met  by  pointing  out  that  rival  claimants 
are  no  better  off.  There  is  much  truth  in  the  contention 
that  Austrian  statecraft  has  brought  matters  to  so  fine  a 
point  that  each  race  or  party  accepts,  as  partial  consolation 
for  its  own  unfulfilled  desires,  the  consideration  that  the 
plight  of  its  rivals  is  no  better  or  still  worse. 

It  follows  that  no  greater  misdemeanour  can  be  com- 
mitted by  a  political  leader  than  to  join  together  those 
whom  the  State  has  elected  to  keep  asunder.  When  in 
October  1905  the  Serbs  and  Croats  of  Dalmatia,  Croatia 
and  Slavonia  formed  a  Coalition  and  proceeded,  on  the 
basis  of  a  Resolution  adopted  in  conference  at  Fiume,  to 
make  an  alliance  with  the  Hungarian  Opposition  then  in 
conflict  with  the  Crown,  the  wrath  and  dismay  of  govern- 
ment circles  at  Vienna  and  Budapest  were  extreme.  Had 
it  not  been  for  decades  the  aim  of  "  Vienna  "  to  keep  Serbs 
and  Croats  apart  and  at  the  same  time  to  maintain  the 
feud  between  Hungary  and  the  Southern  Slavs  by  allowing 
the  Magyars  to  oppress  and  exploit  Croatia- Slavonia? 
Much  that  seems  mysterious  in  the  Annexation  Crisis  of 
1908-9,  including  the  false  documents  exposed  during 


THE  PEOPLE  125 

the  Friedjung  trial,  becomes  explicable  in  the  light  of 
"  Viennese "  resentment  towards  the  authors  of  the  Fiume 
Resolution ;  and  the  animosity  against  M.  Supilo,  chief 
author  of  the  Resolution  who  was  suspected  of  being  a 
Croatian  Kossuth  in  posse,  proceeded  from  the  well-founded 
belief  that  he  had  been  the  promoter  of  Serbo-Croatian 
brotherhood.  "  Brotherhood "  and,  indeed,  any  generous 
impulse  not  sanctioned  and  approved  of  by  "  the  authorities," 
is  apt  to  be  regarded  with  suspicion  in  Austria- Hungary. 
The  State  is,  ex  hypothesi,  the  best  judge  of  what  is  good 
for  the  peoples  that  exist  in  order  to  be  governed  by  it ; 
and  as  long  as  they  recognize  that  their  only  hope  of 
welfare  lies  in  the  State,  their  lot  is  tolerable.  But  when 
they  revolt  or  oppose  the  State  they  may  fare  badly  unless 
they  are  strong  or  clever  enough  to  embarrass  it  by  their 
action  and  to  convince  it  that  the  safest  course  is  to  pay 
blackmail  with  a  good  grace  under  the  cloak  of  some  "  face- 
saving"  formula.  An  Austrian  people  need  never  despair 
as  long  as  it  can  find  means,  in  case  of  need,  to  frighten  the 
Government.  The  impotent,  or  those  for  whom  the  State 
has  "  no  use,"  are  alone  in  a  hopeless  position.  The  case 
of  the  Italians  of  Dalmatia  is  eloquent  of  this  truth.  As 
long  as  Austria  held  her  Italian  provinces  and  needed 
home-grown  officials  of  Italian  culture  to  govern  them,  the 
Italians  of  Dalmatia  were  pampered  and  petted.  The 
authorities  were  always  on  their  side,  education  was  placed 
under  their  control,  and  their  economic  interests  were  taken 
into  account.  But  after  the  loss  of  Lombardy  in  1859  and 
of  Venetia  in  1866,  the  demand  for  Italian  officials  decreased 
and  with  it  the  "  usefulness  "  of  the  Italian  element.  The 
authorities  discovered  that  the  Italians  in  Dalmatia  formed 
an  insignificant  proportion  (little  more  than  3  per  cent)  of 
an  overwhelmingly  Slav  population — a  population  then 
pitifully  ignorant,  uncultured  and  backward  in  every  respect. 
It  was  therefore  decided  to  let  this  population  loose  upon 
the  highly  civilized  minority,  and  the  bitter  struggle  between 
Slavs  and  Italians  began,  the  Government  supporting  and 


126  THE  HAPSBURG   MONARCHY 

encouraging  the  Slavs  and  at  the  same  time  doing  its 
utmost  to  foment  discord  between  them  and  the  Italians. 
Unfortunately  the  Italians,  proud  of  their  heritage  of 
Venetian  culture,  failed  to  perceive  until  too  late  whither 
the  policy  of  the  Government  was  tending.  The  Slavs 
were  leaderless  save  for  a  handful  of  fanatical  priests  and 
half-educated  peasants.  Had  the  Italians,  who  originally 
possessed  a  monopoly  of  culture,,  aided  Slav  development 
instead  of  opposing  it,  they  might  have  become  the  natural 
leaders  of  a  bilingual  province  and,  by  uniting  with  the 
Slavs,  have  compelled  the  Government  to  do  something 
for  Dalmatia  as  a  whole.  But  they  elected  to  play  the 
Government's  game  and  were,  little  by  little,  driven  from 
their  favoured  position.  Commune  after  commune  fell  into 
Slav  hands  until  only  Zara,  the  capital,  remained  under  Italian 
control.  In  their  bitterness  of  heart  the  Italians  cast  longing 
eyes  across  the  Adriatic  and  invoked  the  moral  support  of 
Italy — conduct  which  enabled  the  Austrian  authorities  to 
denounce  them  as  "  unpatriotic,"  and  to  take  measures  against 
the  danger  of  "  Irredentism."  At  last  a  sense  of  reality 
seems  to  be  dawning  in  the  minds  of  the  more  perspicacious 
Dalmatian  Italians,  some  of  whom  now  see  that  their  only 
hope  lies  in  an  understanding  with  the  Slavs  whose  interest 
it  is  to  join  the  Italians  in  opposing  the  present  efforts  of 
the  Government  to  Germanize  the  Austrian  Adriatic. 

The  case  of  Trieste  offers  another  instance  of  the  need 
for  co-operation  between  Slavs  and  Italians.  Save  to  the 
South  and  along  the  Istrian  coast  the  territory  around 
Trieste  is  entirely  Slav.  On  the  hills  above  the  city 
nothing  but  Slovene  is  to  be  heard.  The  struggle  between 
the  Italian  municipality  and  the  Slav  organizations  has 
been  fierce  and  has,  as  in  Dalmatia,  facilitated  the  penetra- 
tion of  German  and  Germanizing  agencies.  Until  recently 
the  Triestine  Italians  had  always  a  supreme  resource  when- 
ever they  wished  to  extort  concessions  from  the  central 
Government  An  explosion  of  "  Irredentist "  sentiment  or 
the  hoisting  of  the  Italian  tricolor  upon  some  municipal 


THE  PEOPLE  127 

building  by  stealth  sufficed  seriously  to  frighten  the 
authorities  and  to  procure  for  the  city — after  the  inevitable 
prelude  of  threats  and  punishments — a  douceur  in  the  form 
of  a  new  wharf  or  some  other  material  concession.  Now, 
however,  the  authorities  are  steadily  making  war  on  the 
Italian  element.  Subjects  of  the  Kingdom  of  Italy  are 
being  expelled  one  by  one,  as  many  as  ninety  expulsions 
taking  place  in  a  month.  Italian  applications  for  Austrian 
citizenship  are  almost  invariably  refused,  even  when  the 
applicants  are  natives  of  Trieste.1  The  Government  has, 
moreover,  steadily  declined  to  sanction  the  establishment  of 
an  Italian  Law  School  at  Trieste.  The  School  was  formerly 
lodged  at  Innsbruck,  but  was  in  1904  looted  and  wrecked 
by  the  German  populace,  led  by  Pan-German  deputies.  Any 
Government  with  a  sense  of  equity  would  have  chastized  the 
wreckers  and  have  given  satisfaction  to  the  Italians.  Not 
so  the  Austrian  Government.  The  Germans  were  powerful 
and  in  a  position  to  embarrass  it  in  a  hundred  ways.  The 
Italians  were  weak  and  tending  to  grow  weaker.  Hence 
they  were  put  off  again  and  again,  until,  after  years  of  agita- 
tion, they  secured  a  promise  that  the  Italian  Law  School 
would  be  established  at  Vienna — a  long  day's  railway  journey 
from  the  nearest  Italian  centre,  one  of  the  most  expensive 
cities  in  Europe,  a  city,  moreover,  thoroughly  out  of  sympathy 
with  Italian  ideals.  For  which  mercy  Austrian-Italian  youths 
and  their  families  are  expected  to  be  grateful ! 

Ab  uno  disce  omnes.  The  Czechs,  whose  power  of  black- 
mailing the  Government  is  considerable,  have  hitherto  failed 
to  obtain  a  second  university  at  Brunn,  the  capital  of 
Moravia,  although  the  Czech  University  at  Prague  is 
crowded  to  overflowing.  The  Germans,  who  have  univer- 
sities at  Vienna,  Innsbruck,  Prague  and  Graz,  block  the  way. 
The  Ruthenes  or  Little  Russians,  of  whom  there  are  nearly 
four  million  in  Austria  and  more  than  half  a  million  in 

1  This  was  written  prior  to  the  recent  decree  of  Prince  Hohenlohe,  the  Lord- 
Lieutenant  of  Trieste,  ordering  the  dismissal  of  all  non-Austrians  from  municipal 
employment. 


128  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

Hungary,  found  no  hearing  for  their  demand  for  a  separate 
Ruthene  University  at  Lemberg,  until  it  appeared  to  the 
Government  that  the  university  might  become  a  powerful 
centre  of  attraction  for  the  25,000,000  Ruthenes  or  Little 
Russians  of  Russia,  and  might  serve  to  spread  Austrian 
and  Catholic  influence  among  them.  Fear  was,  as  usual, 
the  motive  of  the  change.  Russian  agitators  had  begun  in 
Eastern  Galicia  and  the  Bukovina  a  campaign  of  propaganda 
in  favour  of  the  conversion  to  Orthodoxy  of  the  Ruthenes 
belonging  to  the  Greek  United  Church.  The  campaign 
appears  to  have  been  in  part  a  response  to  the  activity  of  the 
Greek  United  Archbishop  of  Lemberg,  Mgr.  Count  Szeptycki, 
who  was  suspected  of  working  with  the  object  of  bringing  the 
Little  Russians  more  and  more  under  Austrian  and  Roman 
control.  The  Russian  reply  to  the  Austrian  movement  caused 
alarm  and  led  to  the  adoption  of  repressive  measures — which 
Russians  denounced  as  political  persecution  on  the  part  of 
the  Austro-Polish  authorities  in  Galicia  and  of  the  Austrian 
authorities  in  the  Bukovina.  Under  the  influence  of  the 
alarm  the  Austrian  Government  suddenly  changed  its  bear- 
ing towards  the  demand  for  a  separate  Ruthene  University 
at  Lemberg  and  the  Emperor  was  induced  to  favour  the 
idea  and  to  put  pressure  upon  the  Poles  who  had,  until  then, 
opposed  it  vigorously.  A  crisis  ensued  in  which  all  the 
personal  influence  of  the  Emperor  had  to  be  employed  to 
tranquillize  the  Poles.  At  last  the  idea  of  the  Ruthene 
University  was  accepted  "  in  principle,"  that  is  to  say  it  was 
shelved  pending  further  developments.  The  nature  of  these 
developments  will  probably  depend  upon  the  political  re- 
lationship between  Austria-Hungary  and  Russia.1  If  the 
relationship  improves,  the  Ruthenes  may  have  to  wait  many 
a  long  year  for  their  University  because  the  University  would 
be  conceived  not  only  as  a  means  of  spreading  higher 
education  among  the  Ruthenes  but  as  the  instrument  of  an 
aggressive  "  cultural  "  policy  against  Russia.  The  University 
would  not  be  "  Ruthene  "  or  "  Little  Russian  "  but  "  Ukraine," 
1  Cf.  pp.  288-292. 


THE  PEOPLE  129 

that  is  to  say  it  would  represent  the  tendency  to  Austrianize 
and  Catholicize  the  Little  Russians  on  both  sides  of  the 
border  and  to  detach  the  Little  Russian  mass  from  its  Great 
Russian  allegiance.  If,  on  the  contrary,  Austro-Russian 
relations  improve,  this  aggressive  Austrian  policy  will  be 
likely  to  remain  in  abeyance,  and  the  Ruthenes  or  Little 
Russians  of  Austria  may  have  to  content  themselves  with 
the  satisfaction  of  a  small  fragment  of  their  demands — unless 
Russia  turns  the  tables  on  Austria  by  establishing  a  Little 
Russian  University  at  Kieff. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  university  questions  in  Austria, 
of  which  the  outer  world  hears  so  much  at  moments  of 
parliamentary  crisis,  are  by  no  means  simple  questions  of 
promoting  or  refusing  to  promote  the  culture  and  enlighten- 
ment of  given  races.  The  Government  tends  to  regard  them 
primarily  from  the  standpoint  of  political  utility,  and  second- 
arily, perhaps,  from  the  standpoint  of  financial  outlay.  The 
races  and  parties  which  demand  universities  regard  them  also 
mainly  from  political  standpoints.  Apart  from  the  circum- 
stance that  the  concession  of  a  university  by  the  Government 
represents  a  marked  political  success  for  the  party  which 
manages  to  extort  it,  there  is  always  the  underlying  con- 
sideration that  a  university  is  a  fresh  key  to  open  the  door 
leading  to  bureaucratic  appointments  and  consequently  to 
participation  in  the  government  of  the  State.  The  higher 
officials  require  a  university  degree,  usually  a  Law  degree. 
Latterly,  technical  degrees  have  been  recognized  as  qualifica- 
tions for  certain  branches  of  the  civil  service.  But  a  Law 
degree  is  the  principal  passport  into  the  bureaucracy.  Con- 
sequently the  law  schools  of  Austrian  Universities  are  crowded 
to  overflowing,  and  young  "  Doctors  of  Law  "  are  turned  out 
annually  by  the  thousand.  Of  these  only  a  small  proportion 
elect  to  follow  the  legal  profession.  The  majority  aspire  to 
Government  appointments ;  and  when  no  vacancies  exist, 
political  pressure  is  often  used  by  parties  and  individual 
politicians  to  obtain  the  creation  of  fresh  offices.  The  results 
are  remarkable.  In  some  of  the  State  Railway  administra- 

K 


1 30  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

tions  "jurists,"  as  these  Doctors  of  Law  are  styled,  do  work 
which  in  private  administrations  would  be  left  to  office  boys 
or  typewriting  clerks.  In  certain  State  and  Provincial 
departments  the  overcrowding  by  jurists  is  a  crying  evil.  It 
has  been  previously  mentioned  l  that  in  the  Lord  Lieutenancy 
of  Lower  Austria  alone  there  were  recently  nearly  two 
hundred  of  them.  In  Bohemia,  Galicia,  Moravia  and  other 
provinces  matters  are  little  better.  In  the  Ministry  of  the 
Interior  and  even  in  the  Ministries  of  Finance  "jurists" 
swarm.  It  is  comprehensible  that  the  Government  should 
therefore  resist  the  tendency  towards  the  creation  of  new 
Universities  with  new  Law  Schools,  which  would  produce  new 
batches  of  jurists  devoid  of  all  practical  experience  or  training. 
A  remedy  for  the  evil  is  hard  to  descry,  unless  some  cour- 
ageous Government  suspends  for  a  term  of  years  the 
appointment  of  fresh  officials,  and,  by  regulating  the  condi- 
tions of  future  employment,  strives  to  correct  the  assumption, 
general  among  the  peoples  of  Austria,  that  the  State  is  able 
to  confer  upon  private  citizens  dignity  and  rank  superior  to 
those  attainable  by  individual  effort.  The  root  of  the  evil 
lies  naturally  in  the  conception  that  the  State  is  something 
higher  than  the  people  and  that  private  persons,  in  so  far 
as  they  are  not  nobles,  are  necessarily  inferior  to  government 
servants.  But  the  State  itself  is  unwilling  to  undermine  this 
idea  lest  it  lay  the  axe  at  the  root  of  its  own  authority. 
The  growth  of  trade  and  industry,  now  largely  in  Jewish 
hands,  and  the  rise  of  a  powerful  middle  class  might  help  to 
break  through  the  vicious  circle.  But  at  present  the  middle 
class  feels  itself  to  be  dependent  on  the  State  on  which  it 
bases  its  hopes  of  attaining  higher  social  rank.  It  supplies 
the  Army  with  officers,  the  State  Departments  with  officials 
and  the  universities  with  professors.  To  hope  for  relief  from 
this  quarter  seems  therefore  to  be  vain. 

The  peasant  class,  which  is  the  backbone  of  Austria  and 
especially  of  Hungary,  stands  by  itself  and  exercises  little 
direct  influence  upon  the  State  or  the  other  elements  of  the 

1  P.  89. 


THE  PEOPLE  131 

community.  Its  position  varies  considerably  from  province  to 
province.  Except  for  the  broad  circumstance  that  the  German 
peasants  of  Lower  and  Upper  Austria,  the  mountaineers  of 
the  Tyrol,  the  Polish  and  Little  Russian  peasants  of  Galicia, 
the  Czech  and  Slovak  peasants  of  Bohemia,  Moravia  and 
North-Eastern  Hungary,  not  to  mention  the  sturdy  Magyar 
peasants  of  the  Hungarian  Lowland,  are  all  engaged  in 
agricultural  pursuits,  there  is  between  them  no  common  bond 
or  special  sympathy.  A  monograph  on  each  province  and 
race  would  be  requisite  to  portray  their  various  characteristics 
or  to  describe  their  conditions  of  life.  Politically,  they  enter 
only  into  the  calculations  of  the  State  as  the  electors  who 
return  Agrarian  or  Clerical  deputies  to  Parliament ;  fiscally, 
they  come  into  consideration  as  taxpayers  ;  from  the  military 
point  of  view  they  are  important  as  supplying  the  bulk  of 
the  recruits  for  the  army  ;  socially,  they  are  stationary  except 
in  so  far  as  they  may  send  their  sons  into  the  Church  or 
seek  to  fit  them  by  higher  education  for  bureaucratic  appoint- 
ments. The  peasantry  is  not  collectively  articulate,  nor  is 
its  political  horizon  such  as  to  fit  it  to  play  an  important 
political  part. 

The  aristocracy,  on  the  contrary,  still  exercises  an  in- 
fluence disproportionate  to  the  duties  it  discharges.  By 
"  aristocracy "  the  great  nobles  are  meant,  some  of  whom 
stand  in  a  special  relationship  to  the  throne  and  enjoy  special 
privileges.  Others  wield  immense  influence  by  reason  of 
their  vast  landed  estates  and  their  large  revenues  which 
would  bear  comparison  with  those  of  the  wealthiest  London 
landlords  and  of  all  save  the  very  wealthiest  American 
milliardaires.  Their  revenues  are  derived  partly  from  their 
rent-rolls,  partly  from  the  direct  management  of  their  estates 
and  partly  from  trade.  The  name  of  many  a  princely  house 
is  to  be  seen  above  milk-shops,  as  indicating  that  the  produce 
sold  is  derived  from  their  dairies.  Others  are  engaged  in 
forestry  and  the  timber  trade,  others  in  the  production  of 
coal,  others  again  in  horse-breeding,  while  not  a  few  have 
large  inland  fisheries.  The  best  side  of  the  Austrian  noble 


132  THE   HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

/ 
is  his  care  for  the  development  of  his  estates.      As  a  result 

he  is  usually  a  healthy,  open-air  being,  not  over-burdened 
with   intellect   nor   troubled  with   fastidious   tastes   save   in 
regard   to   music  and  sport,  but  a  "good  fellow,"   without 
over-weening  pride  though  conscious  of  his  privileged  position 
and  rank.      He  is,  as  a  rule,  related  in  some  degree  to  the 
rest    of   his    caste.     The    "  first   society "   of  Austria    is    a 
"  society   of  cousins,"  a  society,  that   is   to   say,  interested 
mainly  in  its  own  affairs  and  attributing  to  them  greater 
importance  than  to  public  affairs  in  general.     Such  knowledge 
of  the  outside  world  as  its  members  may  possess  has  usually 
been  acquired  by  travel  and  hearsay  rather  than  by  study. 
Big-game  shooting  or  interest  in  other  forms  of  sport  fre- 
quently  leads   them    far    afield    and    adds   knowledge   and 
experience   to   their    innate   courtesy.     But    with    few    ex- 
ceptions the  Austrian  and  particularly  the  Austrian-German 
nobleman  remains  a  decorative  rather  than  a  useful  member 
of  society.      Hungarian   and,   to   some   extent,    Polish   and 
Bohemian  noblemen  belong  to  a  different  category.     Their 
interest  in  public  affairs  is  often  keen  and  their  action  con- 
stant.    The  Austrian-German  nobleman  knows,  however,  that 
it  will  be  difficult  for  him  to  play  a  leading  part  in  politics, 
and  is  inclined  therefore  to  restrict  his  political  activity  to 
occasional  attendance  at  the  sittings  of  the  Upper  Chamber 
or  of  the  Delegations.     In  the  Army  he  has  long  ceased  to 
aspire  to  the  most  responsible  commands.     Diplomacy  offers 
him  a  larger  field  for  activity  ;  though  the  gibe  of  a  Prussian 
diplomatist,  that  in  most  Austro- Hungarian  Embassies  and 
Legations  is  to  be  found  an  aristocrat  with  good  manners 
and  few  brains  to  do  the  honours,  while  behind  a  screen  in 
the  Chancery  sits  the  son  of  a  baptized  Jew  who  does  the 
work,   is   more   malicious    than    accurate.      The   diplomatic 
service,   even    in    its   higher    grades,   is    by   no    means    an 
aristocratic   monopoly.      If  it   be  not   exactly  tine   carriere 
ouverte  aux  talents,  there  are  enough  instances  in  the  diplo- 
matic history  of  the  Monarchy  to  prove  that  non-aristocratic 
birth  is  by  no  means  an  insuperable  obstacle  to  advancement. 


THE  PEOPLE  133 

The  careers  of  the  late  Counts  Hiibner  and  Calice  and  of 
some  ambassadors  and  retired  ambassadors  still  living  are 
cases  in  point.  The  Hapsburg  dynasty  has  often  seemed 
to  prefer  servants  of  lower  to  those  of  higher  extraction,  and 
has  at  times  exhibited  positive  distrust  of  the  independent 
spirit  which  great  nobles  are  apt  to  display.  True,  the 
Emperor  Francis  Joseph  has  usually  reserved  the  chief  Court 
appointments  for  scions  of  great  houses,  though,  here  again, 
the  most  confidential  and  influential  positions  about  the 
person  of  the  Monarch  have  frequently  been  held  by  men 
of  comparatively  low  birth.  It  is  in  the  bureaucracy  that 
noblemen  of  minor  fortune  and  sometimes  those  of  wealth  find 
their  principal  opportunity  of  serving  the  State.  The  annual 
private  revenues  of  Count  Andrew  Potocki,  the  late  Lord 
Lieutenant  of  Galicia,  who  was  assassinated  some  years  since 
by  a  Ruthene  student,  could  be  counted  by  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  pounds.  He  spent,  nevertheless,  the  greater 
part  of  his  maturer  years  in  assiduous  administrative  work. 
The  present  Lord  Lieutenants  of  two  important  provinces 
hold  princely  rank  while  the  title  of  Count  is  by  no  means 
uncommon  among  their  colleagues  and  subordinates.  Yet 
the  general  rule  holds  good  that  the  Austrian  aristocracy 
takes  less  part  in  public  affairs  than  the  aristocracy  of 
England  or  Prussia.  Shooting  seems  often  to  be  its  chief 
object  in  life,  and  many  a  nobleman  laughingly  recognizes 
the  symbolical  truth  of  an  anecdote  told  of  a  Count  Czernin 
who,  when  on  the  point  of  death,  was  heard  by  his 
faithful  servant  to  mutter,  "  And  when  the  Lord  enquires  of 
me,  '  What  hast  thou  done  with  thy  life  ? '  I  must  answer 
'  Oh  !  Lord.  I  have  shot  hares,  shot  hares,  shot  hares.'  It 
is  really  very  little."  But,  as  a  vis  inertia,  the  influence  of 
the  aristocracy  is  great  The  saying  that  the  Englishman 
loves  a  lord  is  true  also  of  the  average  Austrian.  In 
theory,  the  days  are  past  when  it  could  be  said  that,  in 
Austria,  mankind  begins  with  barons  ;  but  though  the  title 
of  baron  is  now,  as  often  as  not,  an  indication  of  Jewish 
descent,  the  social  value  of  titles  is  still  immense.  The  cab- 


134  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

driver  or  waiter  well  knows  that  there  is  no  surer  means  of 
extracting  a  good  tip  from  the  ordinary  citizen  than  to 
address  him  as  "  Count,"  and  the  shopkeeper  never  forgets 
to  prefix  the  particle  "  von  " — the  indication  of  noble  rank — 
to  the  names  of  his  humblest  customers.  Servants  constantly 
address  very  middle-class  masters  and  mistresses  as  "  Your 
Grace,"  and  kiss  their  hands,  in  word  and  act,  morning  and 
evening.  Snobbishness  sometimes  amounting  to  servility 
runs  through  the  middle  classes,  whose  chief  ambition  seems 
to  be  to  resemble  the  nobility  if  not  the  aristocracy.  In 
the  old  days,  before  the  advent  of  motor-cars  had  detracted 
from  the  glory  of  the  drive  to  the  race-course,  it  was  customary 
to  have  the  chief  avenue  through  the  Prater  heavily  watered, 
with  the  result  that  carnages,  Fiakers?  and  their  occupants 
were  usually  bespattered  with  mud  on  reaching  their  destina- 
tion. The  faster  the  horses  the  thicker  the  mud  and  the  greater 
the  "  smartness  "  of  the  bespattered.  Cynics  used  to  pretend  that 
those  who  had  ingloriously  gone  to  the  races  in  that  tabooed 
conveyance,  a  one-horse  cab,  nicknamed  "  confortabel"  were 
wont  carefully  to  besmirch  themselves  with  mud  before 
joining  the  crowd  on  the  race-course — an  alleged  practice 
that  caused  a  former  French  ambassador  to  exclaim,  "  Ici, 
on  a  tous  les  snobismes,  m£me  le  snobisme  de  la  boue ! " 

A  new  and,  in  some  respects,  a  healthier  element  has 
been  introduced  into  Austrian  public  life  by  the  rise  of  the 
working  class  under  the  guidance  of  the  Social  Democratic 
party.  The  movement  itself  is  a  generation  old  but  it  has  only 
displayed  its  force — and  some  of  its  weaknesses — since  the 
introduction  of  universal  suffrage  in  1906-1907.  Whereas 
the  Christian  Social  party  recruits  its  electors  chiefly  among 
the  lower  middle  class,  the  clergy  and,  in  some  districts,  the 
peasants,  the  Social  Democratic  or  Labour  movement  is,  as  in 
Germany,  mainly  a  movement  of  the  industrial  working  class 
led  by  middle-class  politicians,  several  of  whom  are  Jews.  The 
Austrian  Socialist  leader,  Dr.  Victor  Adler,  is,  as  were  Marx, 
Lassalle,  and  other  prominent  German  Socialists,  a  Jew,  but 

1  Two-horse  broughams  or  victorias,  now  fast  disappearing. 


THE  PEOPLE  135 

a  Jew  of  the  prophetic,  self-sacrificing,  zealous  type  that  has 
so  often  saved  the  people  of  Israel  from  the  reproach  of  wor- 
shipping solely  the  golden  calf.  His  personal  fortune,  which 
was  considerable,  has  been  devoted  largely  to  the  needs  of  the 
party  and  especially  to  the  maintenance  of  its  central  organ, 
the  Arbeiter  Zeitung.  While  maintaining,  on  party  questions, 
the  somewhat  narrow  standpoint  of  Marxist  orthodoxy,  the 
Arbeiter  Zeitung  frequently  treats  the  larger  political,  social, 
and  even  diplomatic  issues  with  a  breadth  of  view  and 
statesmanlike  grasp  that  would  honour  any  independent 
journal  in  Europe.  At  times,  though  not  invariably,  its 
columns  are  the  only  refuge  of  common  sense  and  the 
only  protection  against  the  tide  of  semi -officialism  and 
financial  interestedness  that  pollutes  the  German  press  of 
Austria.  Though  its  methods  of  party  propaganda  and 
of  controversy  are  open  to  criticism  and  scarcely  seem 
calculated  to  raise  the  moral  and  political  standards  of  the 
working-class  readers  to  whom  they  are  supposed  to  appeal, 
the  Arbeiter  Zeitung  is,  on  the  whole  and  in  comparison  with 
the  Socialist  press  of  some  other  countries,  an  educative 
force,  just  as  the  Austrian  Socialist  movement  has  hitherto 
had  an  educative  effect  in  view  of  the  soullessness  of  the 
Church  and  of  the  absorption  of  the  middle -class  parties 
in  petty  racial  or  local  interests.  The  broader  questions 
as  to  the  ultimate  effects  of  Socialism  upon  the  populace 
of  large  cities  like  Vienna  and  Prague  ;  of  its  insistence 
upon  the  rights  of  the  proletariate  without  any  correspond- 
ing inculcation  of  a  sense  of  duty,  save  the  duty  of  loyalty 
to  class  and  party ;  and  of  its  dogmatic  attribution  of  all 
social  evils  to  "  Capitalism  "  and  to  the  "  Moloch  of  Mili- 
tarism," have  yet  to  be  answered  and  will  doubtless  be 
answered  in  many  a  scene  of  turmoil  and  violence  before 
Socialism  and  Capitalism  are  themselves  merged  in  a  higher 
synthesis  by  the  irresistible  march  of  economic  and  political 
development.  The  only  standard  by  which  detached  observers 
can  judge  the  ethical  value  of  social  and  political  movements 
is  by  the  degree  of  sincerity  that  inspires  them,  the  devotion 


136  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

which  they  can  command,  and  their  power  to  place  some 
ideal  higher  than  immediate  self-interest  before  the  eyes  of 
their  adherents.  Every  movement  that  can  stand  these 
tests  is  respectable  and  deserving  of  sympathetic  attention, 
however  much  partisans  of  things  as  they  are  and  advocates 
of  "  vested  interests  "  may  feel  bound  to  combat  their  pro- 
fessed objects  and  outward  aspects.  The  Austrian  Socialist 
movement  has  undoubtedly  tended  to  raise  the  intellectual 
level  of  the  masses,  to  give  the  working-classes  a  keener 
interest  in  public  affairs,  to  overcome,  though  not  with  entire 
success,  the  effects  of  racial  rivalry,  and  to  compel  the 
government  to  pay  more  heed  to  the  welfare  of  wage-earners. 
If  it  be  objected  that  it  has  at  the  same  time  tended  to 
destroy  the  spirit  of  servility  and  even  to  undermine  religious 
and  political  reverence,  the  rejoinder  must  be  that  in  a 
country  like  Austria  where  the  final  abolition  of  serfdom 
took  place  within  the  memory  of  living  men  and  where 
State  and  Church  combine  to  prevent  sturdy  public  life,  the 
development  of  capitalistic  industry  was  bound  to  loosen  the 
hold  of  "  the  authorities  "  upon  the  masses  of  the  people  and 
to  be  attended  by  consequences  unwelcome  to  the  partisans 
of  the  moral  and  social  status  quo  ante  libertatem. 

Ante  libertatem  f  The  question  how  far  the  peoples 
of  Austria-Hungary  are  or  can  be  "  free,"  in  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  sense  of  the  word,  is  one  of  the  most  interesting 
issues  in  the  Monarchy.  "  Freedom "  is,  in  Austria,  con- 
ditioned by  the  prerogatives  of  the  all-encompassing  State, 
and  resembles,  in  more  than  one  respect,  the  freedom  re- 
cognized by  Scholastic  doctrine  to  be  the  prerogative  of 
Christians.  The  dictum  of  the  American  Constitution,  that 
man  has  "a  natural  right  to  life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of 
happiness,"  is  as  contradictory  to  the  underlying  principle  of 
the  Austrian  State  as  to  the  conceptions  of  the  disciples 
of  Thomas  Aquinas.  Just  as  Christians  are  presupposed 
to  be  born  in  sin  and  their  freedom  to  be  strictly  contingent 
upon  the  performance  of  the  primary  duty  of  saving  their 
souls  and  of  being,  to  this  end,  obedient  children  of  the 


THE  PEOPLE  137 

Church  whose  Head  holds  the  Keys  of  Death  and  Hell,  so 
Austrian  liberty  is  contingent  upon  subservience  to  the 
Supreme  State  conceived  as  an  expression  of  the  dynasty. 
The  Monarch  is  the  fountain-head  of  all  rights,  and  the  rights 
conceded  from  time  to  time  by  him  to  his  subjects  are,  in 
practice,  circumscribed  by  the  operation  of  laws,  decrees 
and  ordinances  in  the  framing  of  which  the  governed  have 
rarely  a  determining  voice.  But  the  feeling  of  liberty  is 
"  subjective  "  ;  and  as  long  as  restrictions  imposed  from  above 
are  borne  without  discomfort,  the  degree  of  "  objective  "  free- 
dom is  a  matter  of  small  concern  to  others.  Birds  hatched 
in  an  aviary  scarcely  suffer  from  a  sense  of  restriction  ;  and 
the  wire-netting  may  serve  to  keep  marauders  at  a  distance. 
In  the  Hapsburg  Monarchy  the  State  has,  in  certain  respects, 
made  good  its  claim  to  be  the  protector  as  well  as  the 
warder  of  the  public ;  and  though,  in  other  respects,  it 
appears  at  times  to  be  subservient  to  strong  combinations 
of  private  "  interests,"  the  balance  of  its  action  is  perhaps 
favourable  to  the  general  welfare  of  citizens.  While  it  tacitly 
and  expressly  allows  "  trusts "  and  "  rings "  to  levy  contri- 
butions upon  the  purchasing  public  in  the  form  of  higher 
tariffs  and  higher  prices  than  could  be  commanded  in  an 
open  market,  it  limits  on  the  other  hand  the  activity  of 
trusts  and  of  all  employers  of  labour,  nay,  even  of  individual 
artisans,  by  a  complicated  Industrial  Code  that  smacks  at 
once  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  of  the  Twenty-first  Century. 

The  issues  raised  by  State  regulation  of  industrial  and 
commercial  activity  have  been  too  often  and  too  widely 
discussed  to  need  analysis  here.  In  most  civilized  countries 
the  principle  is  now  practically  admitted  that  no  form  of 
private  activity  is  tolerable  which  exposes  the  community 
at  large  to  loss  and  detriment  for  the  sake  of  assuring 
advantages  to  small  minorities.  In  Austria- Hungary  this 
principle  has  been  applied  not  only  to  private  trade  and 
industry  but  also  to  private  finance,  and  its  application  has 
been — from  the  Anglo-Saxon  standpoint — all  the  healthier 
and  less  dangerous,  because  it  proceeded  not  from  any  pre- 


138  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

conceived  theory  but  from  the  practical  necessity  of  remedying 
an  actual  and  precluding  a  future  evil.  Had  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  Currency  reformers  who,  in  1892,  undertook  the 
task  of  evolving  order  out  of  the  monetary  chaos  of  the 
Monarchy,  been  warned  that  the  consequence  of  their  efforts 
would  be  the  establishment  of  the  principle  that  private 
speculation  in  gold  is  inadmissible,  and  that,  in  a  modern 
State,  the  trading  public  cannot  be  exposed  to  loss  by 
the  "arbitrage"  operations  of  private  bankers,  they  would 
have  laughed  the  prediction  to  scorn.  They  set  themselves 
to  establish  an  orthodox  gold  standard  with  free  circulation 
of  gold  coin  and  perfect  interchangeability  between  gold 
and  notes.  They  dethroned  the  old  silver  florin,  so  dear 
to  "arbitrage"  speculators,1  and  installed  in  its  stead  on  a 
pedestal  of  gold  a  coin  of  half  its  value,  the  Krone,  or  Crown, 
worth  rod.  But  they  overlooked  the  fact  that  long  familiarity 
with  State  notes  under  forced  currency  had  accustomed  the 
people  to  the  use  of  paper  money  and  had  created  so  strong 
a  prejudice  against  the  use  of  gold  coin  that,  whenever  the 
Austro-Hungarian  State  Bank  put  gold  into  circulation,  the 
coin  was  returned  to  it  with  unfailing  regularity.  During 
the  first  ten  years  of  this  century,  the  State  Bank  issued 
nearly  ^84,000,000  of  gold  coin  to  the  public.  Of  this 
amount  more  than  ^74,000,000  speedily  found  its  way  back 
to  the  Bank.  A  sum  of  less  than  .£10,000,000  therefore 
represented  the  total  gold  hoarding  of  the  50,000,000 
inhabitants  of  the  Monarchy,  and  from  this  sum  must  be 
subtracted  the  amounts  of  Austro-Hungarian  gold  held  by 
Austro-Hungarian  and  foreign  bankers  and  money-changers, 
or  melted  down  by  goldsmiths  and  jewellers.  Probably 
not  one  in  every  thousand  inhabitants  of  the  Monarchy 

1  The  constant  fluctuations  in  the  exchange  rate  of  the  silver  florin  (gulden), 
formerly  the  standard  coin  of  the  Monarchy,  was  a  source  of  immense  profit  to 
Jewish  speculators  in  rates  of  exchange  or  "arbitrage"  operators.  Many  of  the 
fluctuations  were  artificially  provoked  by  these  speculators  who  gambled  with 
the  currency  of  the  country  as  with  a  private  possession  and  exercised  a  disturbing 
influence  upon  the  business  and  monetary  relations  of  Austria-Hungary  with  other 
countries. 


THE  PEOPLE  139 

has  a  gold  coin  in  his  possession.  Waiters,  cashiers  and 
shopkeepers  are  wont  to  apologize  if  shortness  of  paper 
money  compels  them  to  give  gold  as  change  for  the  larger 
denominations  of  notes.  One  effect  of  this  preference  for 
paper  money  has  been  to  concentrate  in  the  vaults  of  the 
State  Bank  almost  the  entire  gold  supply  of  the  Monarchy. 
The  Bank  thus  holds,  as  a  rule,  a  gold  reserve  more  than 
double  that  of  the  Issue  Department  of  the  Bank  of  England. 
Its  paper  circulation,  which,  by  the  terms  of  its  charter,  is 
only  optionally  convertible  into  gold,  fluctuates  between 
£90,000,000  and  £100,000,000,  and  can  be  largely  increased 
at  the  discretion  of  the  Governors,  subject  to  certain  fiscal 
checks.  Nevertheless  its  notes  stand  constantly  within  neglig- 
ible distance  of  the  mint  par  of  exchange  and,  at  times,  even 
command  a  premium,  while  the  Bank  rate  of  discount  shows 
an  evenness  inferior  only  to  that  of  the  Bank  of  France. 

These  results  have  been  attained  chiefly  by  what  is  known 
as  the  Devisenpolitik  or  Gold  policy  of  the  Bank,  a  policy 
based  upon  the  immunity  from  gold  drafts  for  the  interior 
which  the  Bank  enjoys  by  reason  of  its  right  to  refuse  specie 
payments  in  return  for  notes.  As  long  as  Austro-Hungarian 
Currency  reformers  believed  their  goal  to  be  the  establish- 
ment of  an  orthodox  gold  standard  with  complete  inter- 
changeability  of  gold  and  notes  at  home  as  well  as  abroad, 
they  seemed  blind  to  the  positive  advantages  conferred  upon 
the  Bank  by  the  public  preference  for  paper  money.  Gradu- 
ally, however,  the  Managers  of  the  Bank  came  to  perceive 
that  they  had  a  practical  monopoly  of  the  functions  dis- 
charged in  other  countries  by  gold  brokers  and  bill  brokers. 
They  understood  that  by  opportune  purchases  and  sales  of 
foreign  cheques  and  gold  bills  they  could  steady  the  market, 
and  could,  within  the  limits  set  by  the  balances  of  foreign 
payment,  control  both  the  movements  of  gold  and  the  rates 
of  exchange.  They  then  took  over  the  gold  receipts  of  the 
Custom  Houses  and  State  Railways,  and  were  commissioned 
to  pay  abroad  the  coupons  of  foreign  investors  in  Austrian 
and  Hungarian  Stocks.  They  opened  accounts  with  foreign 


140  THE   HAPSBURG   MONARCHY 

banks,  and  by  drawing  directly  upon  them,  deprived 
speculators  of  all  chance  of  turning  rates  of  exchange  against 
the  Monarchy.  Emboldened  by  this  success,  the  Bank 
passed  from  what  may  be  called  a  curative  to  a  preventive 
gold  policy.  Having  become  the  largest  holder  and  broker 
of  gold  bills,  it  began  to  dictate  prices  in  such  manner  that 
fluctuations  of  the  foreign  exchange  rates  round  the  mint- 
par  level  became  almost  imperceptible.  Vienna,  formerly 
the  home  and  high  school  of  "arbitrage"  speculation,  gradually 
lost  her  dubious  pre-eminence.  Private  bankers  soon  found 
that  their  foreign  speculative  requirements  were  not  complied 
with  and  that  this  lucrative  branch  of  their  business  was  being 
deliberately  killed.  Not  only  did  the  Bank  maintain  the  parity 
of  the  exchanges  by  supplying  legitimate  demands  for  gold  bills 
at  prices  below  the  "  outgoing  specie  point "  but  by  refusing,  in 
certain  cases,  to  supply  gold,  short  bills  or  cash  transfers  at  all, 
even  when  the  exchanges  had  reached  or  risen  above  the  "  out- 
going specie  point."  Intimate  acquaintance  with  the  market 
enabled  the  Bank  to  distinguish  between  legitimate  and  specu- 
lative demands.  If  doubt  existed,  applicants  were  called  upon 
to  prove  the  legitimacy  of  their  requirements.  Attempts  to 
circumvent  the  Bank's  control  were  more  than  once  punished 
by  the  Bank  which  taught  a  severe  lesson  to  speculators  by 
putting  down  the  price  of  gold  bills  suddenly  without  apparent 
cause.  Its  object  was  naturally  to  prevent  private  financiers 
from  lending  abroad  more  money  than  could  well  be  spared. 
The  Bank  thus  laid  down  the  important  and  almost  revolu- 
tionary principle  that  it  is  not  legitimate  to  lay  upon  the 
whole  trade  and  industry  of  a  country  the  burden  of  a  high 
Bank  rate  of  discount  merely  in  order  that  private  speculators 
may  profit.  In  other  words,  it  vindicated  the  truth  which  is 
as  yet  ignored  in  England  and  only  dimly  perceived  in 
France,  that  the  pecuniary  resources  of  a  country  are  a  national 
asset  not  to  be  left  with  impunity  at  the  mercy  of  private 
international  financiers.  Though  the  peculiar  circumstances 
which  enable  the  Austro-Hungarian  Bank  to  maintain  an 
orthodox  gold  standard  in  dealing  with  foreign  countries, 


THE  PEOPLE  141 

and  an  optionally  convertible  paper  standard  in  its  operations 
at  home,  may  prevent  the  practice  of  the  Bank  from  being 
readily  imitated  elsewhere,  the  principle  on  which  the  practice 
is  based  is  so  sound  that  it  can  hardly  fail  ultimately  to  affect 
the  whole  fabric  of  international  finance. 

It  is  strange  that  Austria-Hungary,  geographically  and, 
in  a  sense,  psychologically  the  nearest  European  State  to 
what  has  been  called  the  "  pre-economic  "  East,  should  have 
been  the  first  to  extend  State  control  to  a  branch  of  private 
activity  previously  unregulated  ;  and  should  thus  have  taken 
a  step  towards  the  "  post-economic  "  era  which  many  students 
believe  to  be  the  unconscious  goal  of  modern  economic 
development.  The  era  of  individualism  in  trade  and  industry 
is  fast  passing  away.  There  appears  to  be  no  reason  why 
private  finance  and  banking  should  escape  the  operation  of  a 
general  economic  law,  though  the  fluidity  of  capital  and  the 
comparative  intangibility  of  "  irresponsible "  liquid  wealth 
may  render  those  branches  of  business  difficult  to  locate  and 
to  place  under  discipline.  But  the  strong  tendency  of  Capital 
towards  agglomeration,  as  of  trade  and  industry  towards 
monopolistic  organization,  will  assuredly  facilitate  in  the  long 
run  the  task  of  governments  or  communities  that  may  deem 
it  expedient  to  make  financiers  run  in  harness.  The  question 
as  to  the  abstract  desirability  of  progressive  State  regulation, 
or  even  of  direct  State  management  of  enterprises  hitherto 
individualized,  has  little  positive  importance.  By  the  time 
an  issue  of  this  kind  becomes  ripe  for  practical  treatment,  a 
government,  or  the  community  it  represents,  has  usually  no 
choice  save  between  two  evils — the  evil  of  the  open  or 
surreptitious  control  of  the  State  by  powerful  economic 
corporations  or  the  evil  of  restricting  the  economic  activity 
of  individuals.  This  subject  has  rarely  been  more  luminously 
treated  than  by  an  English  economist,1  who,  some  twenty 
years  since,  drew  an  interesting  parallel  between  the  develop- 
ment of  military  organization  and  the  probable  development 
of  capitalistic  enterprise,  and  sustained  the  thesis  that  just 

1  J.  A.  Hobson,  The  Evolution  of  Modern  Capitalism, 


142  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

as  national  armies  had  succeeded  to  the  old  professional 
standing  armies  which  had  become  at  once  insufficient  for 
national  defence  and  a  political  danger  to  the  community,  so 
national  industries  would  probably  succeed  to  private  capital- 
istic undertakings.  Such  undertakings,  he  argued,  would 
lose  some  degree  of  efficiency  through  bureaucratization, 
just  as  the  modern  soldier  with  his  two  or  three  years' 
training  is  less  efficient  than  the  professional  mercenary  of 
yore  ;  but  he  claimed  that  this  loss  of  individual  efficiency 
would  be  counterbalanced  by  greater  political  security  and 
by  setting  free  individual  energies  for  activity  in  other  and 
possibly  higher  spheres  than  those  offered  either  by  military 
or  by  industrial  occupations.  Whether  this  thesis  be  sound 
or  the  reverse,  it  is  an  unquestionable  fact  that  in  Austria- 
Hungary,  quite  apart  from  State  control,  the  bureaucratization 
of  financial  and  industrial  undertakings  is  proceeding  apace 
and  that  the  large  banks  and  the  great  manufacturing  and 
commercial  enterprises  offer  to-day  fewer  openings  for 
individual  talent  than  they  offered  twenty  or  even  ten  years 
since.  Smaller  firms  tend,  moreover,  to  seek  the  support  of 
the  larger  Banks,  and  some  industrial  enterprises  of  respectable 
dimensions  have  of  late  been  converted  into  mere  dividend- 
earning  departments  of  what  were  originally  purely  financial 
institutes.  A  few  men  of  administrative  talent  find  remunera- 
tive positions  as  business  or  technical  managers  of  these 
amalgamated  undertakings  but  the  rank  and  file  of  business 
men  are  gradually  drifting  into  the  position  of  salaried 
officials  in  the  employ  of  vast  soulless  machines  over  whose 
working  they  have  no  control.  The  restriction  of  average 
individual  activity  is  thus  already  an  incontestable  fact 
without  State  interference.  But  the  question  of  the  relation- 
ship between  the  heads  of  such  undertakings  and  the  State 
remains  open  and  requires  careful  consideration.  This 
problem  exists  in  its  acutest  form  in  the  United  States, 
where,  however,  the  difficulty  of  defending  the  government 
and  the  public  against  the  power  of  financial  and  industrial 
corporations  under  the  control  of  wealthy  individuals  is 


THE  PEOPLE  143 

aggravated  by  the  loose -jointedness  of  American  political 
institutions.  In  Austria- Hungary  the  difficulty  lies  rather 
in  maintaining  a  line  of  demarcation  between  the  industrial 
and  financial  bureaucracy  and  the  bureaucracy  of  the  State. 
A  striking  illustration  of  the  nature  of  this  difficulty  is 
afforded  by  the  tendency  of  high  officials  of  the  State  to 
pass  into  the  service  of  private  and  semi-private  undertakings. 
Such  officials  inevitably  retain  their  friendships  and  other 
connexions  with  their  former  colleagues,  nay,  it  is  possible 
that  the  very  possession  of  such  friendships  and  connexions 
may  be  regarded  as  increasing  their  potential  value  to  private 
enterprises  which  have  constant  and  confidential  dealings 
with  the  State.  The  career  of  such  an  official  is  typical 
of  what  is  possible  in  Austria,  and  indeed  in  Hungary. 
The  son  of  an  obscure  provincial  Rabbi  obtains,  by  luck  or 
protection,  some  subordinate  appointment  in  a  Department 
of  State.  By  dint  of  quick-wittedness  and  pliancy  coupled 
with  a  capacity  for  making  himself  useful,  he  gradually  rises  in 
the  bureaucratic  scale  and  enters  the  bureau  which,  in  several 
State  Departments,  is  entrusted  with  the  work  of  "  inform- 
ing "  the  press.  Hand  in  hand  with  the  giving  of  "  informa- 
tion," goes  the  giving  of  subsidies  from  the  secret  funds  to 
"  well-disposed  "  and  "  patriotic  "  journalists.  The  journalists 
— most  of  whom  are  Jews  by  birth — thus  fed  in  money  and 
kind,  may  be  trusted  never  to  bite  the  hand  that  feeds  or 
has  fed  them  ;  otherwise,  awkward  facts  in  regard  to  them 
might  come  to  light.  With  their  help,  the  active  and  hard- 
working official  is  able  to  establish  his  control  over  a  great 
part  of  the  press  and  to  render  inestimable  services  to  his 
chief,  particularly  if  the  chief  be  Prime  Minister.  Careful 
to  keep  all  the  wires  in  his  own  hands  and  to  cow  opponents 
by  inspiring  opportune  attacks  upon  them  in  the  journals 
at  his  disposal ;  careful,  moreover,  to  obtain,  through  his 
growing  influence,  the  appointment  or  the  promotion  of 
trustworthy  proteges  to  other  Departments  of  State  than  that 
to  which  he  belongs,  the  official  is  always  in  a  position  to 
know  what  is  going  on  in  those  Departments,  and,  by 


144  THE   HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

judicious  use  of  his  knowledge  in  the  press  and  otherwise,  to 
defeat  intrigues  and  ambitions  of  which  he  may  disapprove, 
or  to  further  aims  and  schemes  that  may  appear  to  him 
worthy  of  encouragement.  In  a  word,  he  becomes  indis- 
pensable and,  within  certain  limits,  omnipotent.  With  his 
help  and  support,  a  Cabinet,  or  at  least  a  Premier,  can  hold 
office  long  after  its,  or  his,  public  usefulness  has  ceased  ; 
and  when  the  end  appears  nevertheless  to  be  in  sight,  the 
omnipotent  wirepuller  is  able,  by  withdrawing  his  support 
from  his  "chief"  and  transferring  it  to  some  other  candidate 
for  the  premiership,  to  hasten  the  disappearance  of  the  one 
and  the  appearance  of  the  other.  With  skill,  this  process 
may  be  repeated  until  the  wirepuller  has  exhausted  the 
possibilities  of  bureaucratic  advancement  and  has  tasted  to 
satiety  all  the  joys  of  semi-clandestine  power.  He  has  long 
since  changed  his  Jewish  for  a  German  or  a  Magyar  name. 
A  timely  conversion,  preferably  to  Roman  Catholicism  ; 
baptism  with  the  support  of  authentic  Catholic  and,  if 
possible,  titled  sponsors  to  whom  he  may  have  rendered  in  his 
official  capacity  some  signal  service  ;  a  marriage  with  a  well- 
endowed  daughter  of  some  influential  but  not  too  prominent 
family  ;  a  recompense  for  his  devotion  to  the  State  in  the 
form  of  a  Privy  Councillorship  that  gives  him  the  style  of 
"  Excellency  "  and  entitles  him  to  be  addressed  in  the  third 
person  plural — these  and  other  minor  developments  create 
for  him  a  pedestal  from  which  he  is  able  to  command  an 
appointment  to  the  House  of  Peers  and  to  step  into  a 
lucrative  position  at  the  head  of  some  economico-financial 
institute  when  occasion  offers.  In  his  new  position  he  can 
at  once  acquire  wealth  and  extend  his  influence  over  the 
financial  while  retaining  his  connexions  with  the  official  world. 
Such  careers  have  been  and  are  still  possible  in  the  Hapsburg 
Monarchy  which,  despite  its  reputation  for  conservatism,  might 
with  justice  claim  that  it  offers  even  to  its  humblest  citizens 
a  career  open  to  talent  especially  when  the  talent  is  that  of 
the  Jew. 


THE   PEOPLE  145 


THE  JEWS 

Among  the  peoples  of  Austria -Hungary  the  Jewish 
people  stands  first  in  importance.  It  is  not  usually 
enumerated  among  the  Hapsburg  "  nationalities,"  though 
the  Zionist  movement  has  brought  into  being  a  Jewish 
National  Organization  which  was  represented  in  the  Parlia- 
ment of  1907  by  two  Zionist  deputies  and  by  a  politician 
who  was  described  as  a  "  Moderate  Israelite."  In  Statistical 
Year  Books  the  Jews  figure  only  as  a  "  denomination." 
Numerically  they  appear  to  be  less  considerable  than  the 
Germans,  the  Magyars,  the  Czechs,  the  Poles,  the  Ruthenes, 
the  Serbo-Croatians,  the  Rumanes,  and  only  surpass,  with  their 
official  religious  total  of  2,300,000,  the  Slovenes  and  the 
Italians.  Economically,  politically  and  in  point  of  general 
influence  they  are,  however,  the  most  significant  element  in 
the  Monarchy.  No  foreign  observer  of  Austro-Hungarian 
affairs  can  close  his  eyes  to  the  Jewish  question,  however 
much  he  may  seek  to  ignore  it  or  to  "  beg  "  it  by  adopting 
an  unreasoning  philo-semitic  or  anti-semitic  attitude.  The 
greatest  obstacle  to  a  comprehension  of  the  terms  of  the 
problem  is  the  difficulty  of  obtaining  precise  and  reliable 
information.  It  is  far  easier  to  get  at  the  truth  of  the 
Czech-German  question  in  Bohemia,  of  the  Slav- Italian 
question  in  Dalmatia  and  Istria,  and  even  of  the  complicated 
struggle  between  Magyars  and  non- Magyars  in  Hungary, 
than  to  ascertain  the  merits  of  the  Jewish  question.  Other 
ethnico- religious  issues  are  local  and  special.  They  can 
usually  be  expressed  in  terms  of  language,  creed,  or  of 
avowed  political  aspiration.  The  Jewish  question  is  uni- 
versal and  elusive.  It  cannot  be  truly  expressed  either  in 
terms  of  religion,  nationality,  or  race.  The  Jews  themselves 
seem  destined  so  to  arouse  the  passions  of  those  with  whom 
they  come  into  contact  that  impartiality  in  regard  to  them 
is  rare.  Some  Jews,  indeed,  regard  the  very  recognition  of 
the  existence  of  a  Jewish  question  as  a  confession  of  anti- 

L 


146  THE  HAPSBURG   MONARCHY 

semitism.  These  are  the  "  Assimilationists."  Others  devote 
their  lives  and  energies  to  a  solution  of  the  question  in  the 
Zionist  sense  and  denounce  as  renegades  all  fellow -Jews 
who  seek  to  hide  their  race  and  religion.  Between  the 
conflicting  statements  and  standpoints  of  the  Jews  them- 
selves, unbiased  enquirers  are  often  bewildered  and  relinquish 
in  despair  the  attempts  to  "get  at  the  bottom  of"  the  Jewish 
question  either  in  its  general  significance  or  in  its  bearing 
upon  individual  States  and  countries. 

Yet  it  may  safely  be  said  that  no  question  deserves 
more  earnest  study.  It  assumes  a  hundred  forms,  reaches 
into  unsuspected  regions  of  national  and  international  life, 
and  influences,  for  good  or  evil,  the  march  of  civilization. 
The  main  difficulty  is  to  find  a  starting-point  from  which  to 
approach  it,  a  coign  of  vantage  high  enough  to  command 
a  view  of  its  innumerable  ramifications.  Is  it  a  question  of 
race  or  of  religion  ?  It  is  both  and  more.  Is  it  a  question 
of  economics,  finance  and  of  international  trade  ?  It  is 
these  and  something  besides.  Are  the  peculiar  character- 
istics that  form  at  once  the  strength  and  weakness  of  the 
Jews  a  result  of  religious  persecution,  or  have  the  Jews  been 
persecuted  because  these  characteristics  have  rendered  them 
odious  to  the  peoples  that  have  harboured  them  ?  This 
is  the  old  question  whether  the  hen  or  the  egg  should 
take  genealogical  precedence.  Approached  from  the  his- 
torico-religious  standpoint  the  Jewish  question  is  inextricably 
complicated  and,  despite  its  thrilling  interest,  is  apt  to 
prove  insoluble.  It  needs  to  be  approached  practically,  in 
the  light  of  direct  experience  of  Jews  both  as  individuals 
and  in  the  mass.  When  such  experience  has  been  acquired, 
the  Jewish  and  the  Christian  Scriptures  are  seen  to  glow 
with  new  light ;  the  language  of  the  Prophets  becomes 
intelligible ;  the  fiery  denunciations  of  John  the  Baptist,  the 
delicate  irony  and  revolutionary  force  of  the  parables  of 
Christ  are  appreciated  as  never  before  ;  the  conception  of 
Jehovah  is  seen  to  be  a  faithful  reflection  of  the  Jewish 
mind,  and  the  High  Priests,  Scribes,  Pharisees,  and  Sad- 


THE   PEOPLE  147 

ducees  fall  into  their  places  when  modern  experience  has 
proved  them  to  exist  potentially  or  actually  in  the  Jewry  of 
to-day.  No  country  in  the  world  save,  perhaps,  the  United 
States,  is  better  adapted  than  Austria-Hungary  to  a  study 
of  the  Jewish  question.  Though  there  are  fewer  Jews  in 
the  Monarchy  than  in  Russia  and  though  it  does  not  offer, 
on  the  one  hand,  spectacles  like  those  to  be  seen  within  the 
Russian  Jewish  Zone  nor,  on  the  other,  such  possibilities  of 
advancement  to  the  very  highest  positions  in  the  State  as 
have  been  filled  by  Jews  in  England  and  Italy  where  the 
Jews  are  comparatively  few  in  number,  the  Hapsburg 
Monarchy  presents  the  student  with  unequalled  opportunities 
of  observing  the  Jews  as  they  are,  in  various  environments 
and  in  all  save  the  extremest  stages  of  degradation  and 
emancipation.  In  the  Spanish  Jews,  or  Sephardim,  of 
Bosnia- Herzegovina  and  of  Trieste,  and  in  the  German- 
Polish,  or  Ashkenazim  Jews  of  Galicia,  Hungary  and 
Bohemia  the  two  main  branches  of  the  Jewish  faith,  if  not 
of  the  Jewish  race,  are  to  be  met  with.  The  question  whether 
the  Sephardim  belong  to  a  different  and  more  aristocratic 
branch  of  the  Semitic  family  than  the  Ashkenazim  is  still 
undecided  by  ethnologists,  though  experience  suggests  that 
the  superiority  claimed  by  the  Sephardim  over  the  Ash- 
kenazim may  well  have  a  historico-social  if  not  an  ethnical 
basis.  Physically,  there  is  no  doubt  as  to  the  superiority 
of  the  Sephardim  type  ;  and  if  it  be  objected  that  the  de- 
graded, bow-legged,  repulsive  type  often  to  be  found  among 
the  Ashkenazim  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  product  of  persecution 
during  the  Christian  era,  it  may  be  answered  that  the  same 
type  is  to  be  found  on  Egyptian  and  Babylonian  monuments, 
and  that  the  Etruscan  Museum  of  the  Vatican  contains  vases 
and  other  terre  cotte  bearing  caricatures  of  the  identical  type 
which  anti-semitic  caricaturists  are  wont  to  portray  as  that 
of  the  old -clothes  dealer  or  of  the  German  Jewish  stock- 
jobber. Such  evidence  as  is  available  goes  to  show  that 
the  various  Jewish  types  are  pre-historical  if  not  aboriginal, 
and  to  furnish  further  proof,  if  proof  were  needed,  of  the 


148  THE   HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

strength  of  the  Jewish  stock  and  of  the  concentrated  intensity 
of  its  race-character. 

This  intensity  which  the  Law  of  Moses,  in  its  Talmudic 
wrappings,  has  helped  to  maintain,  is  the  main  feature  and 
foundation  of  the  Jewish  question  —  a  question  at  once 
qualitative  and  quantitative.  Whoever  said,  "  The  Jews  are 
the  salt  of  the  earth — but  you  can't  dine  off  salt,"  put  the 
problem  in  a  nutshell,  in  so  far,  at  least,  as  it  regards  non- 
Jewish  peoples.  Anti-Jewish  feeling  can  almost  invariably 
be  expressed  in  terms  of  the  percentage  of  Jews  to  non- 
Jews  intermingled  with  the  other  elements  of  a  community. 
When  the  percentage  rises  above  a  certain  point — a  point 
determined  in  each  case  by  the  character  of  the  non-Jewish 
population — anti-semitism  makes  its  appearance  and  finds 
expression  in  ways  varying  from  social  ostracism  to  massacre. 
In  Austria- Hungary,  anti-semitism  is  both  political  and 
endemic.  In  the  Slovak  villages  of  Moravia  and  North- 
Western  Hungary,  it  rises  and  falls  with  the  number  of 
Jewish  usurers,  pedlars,  and  liquor  dealers  in  the  region. 
During  a  recent  electoral  campaign  in  Hungary,  a  candidate 
of  Jewish  origin  but  no  longer  of  Jewish  faith,  who  was 
standing  for  Parliament  in  a  Slovak  constituency,  enquired 
of  his  fellow-Jews  how  they  fared  and  whether  life  were 
easy.  "  When  we  are  two  or  three  in  a  village,"  was  the 
answer,  "  things  go  well  and  there  is  a  living  for  everybody. 
But  when  others  come,  things  go  badly.  Then  there  is 
competition  and  the  peasants  hate  us."  The  same,  mutatis 
mutandis,  may  be  said  of  large  cities.  The  Jews  of  Vienna 
would  long  since  have  ceased  to  be  exposed  to  anti-semitic 
agitation  were  their  ranks  not  swelled  every  year  by 
thousands  of  new-comers  from  Galicia  and  Hungary  who 
invade  the  field  of  exploitation  conquered  by  their  pre- 
decessors and  make  economic  war  upon  Jew  and  non-Jew 
alike.  The  desirability  of  creating  in  Vienna,  Lower 
Austria,  and  the  German  provinces  of  Bohemia  a  "  pre- 
serve "  against  the  influx  from  Galicia  has  often  been  dis- 
cussed by  well-to-do  Viennese  Jews,  and  as  often  abandoned 


THE   PEOPLE  149 

as  impracticable.  The  existence  of  the  idea  tends,  however, 
to  show  that  the  Jews  themselves  recognize  the  nature  of 
the  problem  with  which  their  race  confronts  the  rest  of 
civilized  mankind.  Apart  from  the  freedom  of  movement 
constitutionally  guaranteed  in  Austria,  the  overcrowding  of 
the  great  Jewish  reservoir  in  Galicia  would  make  the  im- 
position of  restrictions  a  matter  of  difficulty  even  were  such 
restrictions  otherwise  justifiable.  The  Jew  may  be  an  ex- 
ploiter of  others'  labour  but  it  is  false  to  suppose  that  he 
exploits  only  non  -  Jews.  The  sweating  dens  of  East 
London  prove  the  contrary.  In  Galicia,  as  in  several  parts 
of  Hungary,  Jew  exploits  Jew  with  a  remorselessness  not 
surpassed  by  any  Jewish  exploitation  of  Christians.  The 
exploited  are  gradually  reduced  to  a  "standard  of  i life" 
pitifully  near  starvation  -  point ;  and  when  even  such  a 
standard  is  not  obtainable,  the  reservoir  overflows  in  the 
form  of  migration  and  emigration.  Without  incurring 
odium,  a  modern  State  cannot  check  the  overflow  within 
its  own  borders  ;  but  one  of  the  grave,  if  not  the  gravest, 
aspects  of  the  Jewish  problem  to-day  is  the  manner  in  which 
the  overflow  by  emigration  is  being  checked,  and  necessarily 
being  checked,  by  countries  like  the  United  States  and 
England  that  formerly  allowed  pauper  aliens  to  enter  free. 

It  is  estimated  that  between  1881  and  1908  some 
2,000,000  Jews  emigrated  from  Russia,  Austria -Hungary, 
and  Rumania  to  the  United  States  and  England.  Of  this 
total  Austria- Hungary  furnished  more  than  300,000. 
America  received  1,750,000,  and  England  most  of  the  re- 
mainder. The  American  immigration  statistics  show  that 
the  poorest  of  the  emigrants  entering  the  United  States  are 
Jews.  The  regulation  that  immigrants  must  prove  them- 
selves to  possess  on  arrival  a  minimum  sum  of  25  dollars 
excludes  thousands  of  Jews  annually — in  1911,  14,500 
were  sent  back  to  Europe  from  New  York  alone.  In  1901, 
when  the  regulations  were  less  severe,  the  average  amount 
possessed  by  Jewish  immigrants  was  only  8.7  dollars  as 
compared  with  41.5  dollars  possessed  by  Scottish,  38.7 


150  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

dollars  by  English,  and  37.6  by  Japanese  immigrants.  The 
British  Immigration  Laws  also  prevent  the  emigration  of 
large  numbers  of  Jewish  paupers  who  would  otherwise  leave 
the  Ghettos  of  Russia  and  the  Jewish  districts  of  Austria- 
Hungary.  The  poverty  of  the  mass  of  Russian  Jews  is 
often  attributed  to  political  persecution  and  to  the  confine- 
ment of  the  Russian  Jews  within  a  Jewish  zone.  In  Galicia 
there  is  no  such  confinement,  yet  the  mass  of  the  Jews  re- 
mains poverty-stricken.  Whereas  in  Galicia  they  form  only 
1 1  per  cent  of  the  population,  they  make  up  more  than 
one-half  of  the  inhabitants  without  regular  employment. 
Jewish  workmen  who  earn  as  much  as  143.  a  week  are  con- 
sidered fortunate  ;  the  more  wealthy  Jews  are  dealers  in 
spirits,  pedlars,  usurers,  and  horse -brokers.  Their  life  is 
still  in  most  respects  the  life  of  the  Ghetto. 

The  tendency  of  the  Jews  to  congregate  in  and  over- 
crowd one  quarter  of  a  city  or  town — they  seem  to  feel 
invincible  repugnance  to  life  in  the  open  country — is  the 
most  striking  characteristic  of  the  race  taken  in  the  mass. 
This  explanation  of  the  tendency  currently  given  by  Jewish 
and  pro-Jewish  writers  is  that  it  is  a  consequence  of  Ghetto 
life,  the  Ghetto  having  been  invented  by  oppressors  in  order 
to  facilitate  control  over  an  alien  and  too  active  race.  The 
view  that  the  Ghetto  is  a  necessary  and  inevitable  conse- 
quence of  the  Mosaic  Law  as  developed,  or  perverted,  by 
the  Mishna  and  the  Talmud  is,  however,  more  logical  and 
historically  sounder.  It  was  recognized  by  implication  in 
a  memorandum  presented  some  years  ago  to  the  Ottoman 
Government  by  a  German  -  Jewish  Society  for  Jewish 
Colonization  in  which  it  was  pointed  out  that  "the  sending 
of  immigrants  to  various  points  (in  Turkey)  must  not 
entail  the  entire  separation  of  individuals  and  families  from 
each  other  ;  for,  in  order  to  be  able  to  fulfil  his  religious 
duties,  a  Jew  is  forced  to  live  among  his  co-religionists."  If 
it  be  true  that,  in  one  form  or  another,  the  Ghetto  is  an 
internal  Jewish  necessity  in  so  far  as  the  Jews  remain 
faithful  to  their  creed — a  necessity  proceeding  from  the 


THE  PEOPLE  151 

command  that  the  Jewish  people  keep  itself  pure  and  un- 
defiled  by  contact  with  the  Gentiles — it  would  follow  that 
the  tendency  to  congregate  in  Ghettos  must  have  facilitated 
the  control  and  segregation  of  the  Jews  by  police  arrange- 
ments imposed  from  outside.  There  are  no  external  police 
arrangements  of  the  kind  in  London,  Vienna,  or  New  York, 
yet  in  each  of  those  cities  there  are  Jewish  quarters  where 
overcrowding  is  almost  as  noticeable  as  in  the  Ghettos  of 
Odessa  or  Lodz.  Among  the  more  recent  and  sincere 
literature  on  the  Jewish  question  that  has  grown  up  under 
the  influence  of  the  Zionist  movement,  striking  admissions 
are  to  be  found  of  the  truth  of  the  view  that  the  Ghetto  is 
a  Talmudic  necessity.  Dr.  Jacob  Fromer,  a  native  of  the 
Ghetto  of  Lodz  in  Russian  Poland  and  sometime  librarian 
of  the  Jewish  community  at  Berlin,  has,  as  an  authority 
on  the  Talmud  and  as  a  critic  of  Professor  Werner 
Sombart's  important  work  Die  Juden  und  das  Wirtschafts- 
leben,  helped  to  define  the  question  in  its  veritable  terms. 
In  endeavouring  to  reconstruct  his  well  -  known  work  on 
Modern  Capitalism,  Werner  Sombart  was  led  to  investigate 
the  origin  of  the  "  Capitalist  Spirit,"  and  in  course  of 
analysing  Max  Weber's  theory  of  the  relationship  between 
Puritanism  and  the  development  of  Capitalism,  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  all  the  elements  of  Puritanism  which  really 
contributed  to  the  growth  of  the  capitalist  spirit  were  drawn 
from  the  Jewish  religion.  Going  a  step  further  in  his  in- 
vestigation, Sombart,  after  patient  study  of  Judaism  and 
Jewish  history,  established  a  causal  connexion  between  the 
Jews  and  the  development  of  economic  life  in  its  capitalistic 
form  ;  that  is  to  say,  he  ascribes  to  the  Jews  the  chief  in- 
fluence in  the  passage  of  the  civilized  world  from  the  "  pre- 
economic "  into  the  economic  stage.  Those  whom  the 
question  interests  as  a  problem  in  economics  must  be  re- 
ferred to  the  original  work ; *  but  for  present  purposes  a 
brief  summary  of  his  thesis  may  be  given. 

1  Die  Juden   und  das   Wirtschaftskben,   Leipzig,   Duncker  und    Humblot, 
1911. 


152  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

With  the  realism  of  the  modern  German  savant,  Sombart 
lays  down  the  principle  that  the  man  of  business  can  have 
no  other  object  than  the  making  of  profit.  System, 
expediency,  and  calculation  are  his  three  guides.  These 
fundamental  postulates  of  Capitalism  are  to  be  found  in  the 
Jewish  religion.  The  relationship  of  the  Jew  to  Jehovah  is 
not  a  filial  nor  a  loving  relationship.  Judaism,  in  its  essence, 
contains  no  trace  of  belief  in  Divine  grace  and  no  mysticism 
properly  so  called.  The  intercourse  of  Jews  with  their 
Deity  is  sober,  mechanical,  and  businesslike  ;  all  their  acts 
are  believed  to  be  registered  in  a  celestial  ledger,  the  good 
deeds  on  the  credit,  the  bad  deeds  on  the  debit  side.  Even 
interest  is  reckoned.  The  Old  Testament  scarcely  mentions 
other  reward  for  righteousness  or  punishment  for  unrighteous- 
ness than  the  gain  or  loss  of  temporal  goods.  Post-Biblical 
Judaism  transferred  the  profit  and  loss  into  the  other  world 
but  retained  the  acquisition  of  wealth  as  the  most  laudable 
object  in  life  alongside  of  the  observance  of  Divine  commands. 
The  Talmud,  which  is  a  codification  of  commentaries  upon 
the  Mishna  which  was  in  its  turn  a  codification  of  com- 
mentaries upon  the  Torah,  or  Mosaic  Law,  is  filled  with 
acute  business  precepts.  The  application  of  these  precepts 
has  been  facilitated  by  the  distinction  between  Jews  and 
Gentiles,  a  distinction  that  made  non-Jews  a  legitimate 
object  of  exploitation  by  Jewish  usurers  and  money-lenders. 
Sombart,  who  claims  that  there  is  hardly  a  people  in  the 
world  so  closely  bound  up  with  its  religion  as  the  Jews, 
finds,  therefore,  ^prima  facie  case  for  the  belief  that  Capitalism 
is  essentially  a  product  of  the  Jewish  mind. 

1  Nevertheless  religion  is  not  the  only  nor,  perhaps,  even 
the  primary  element  in  the  life  of  a  people.  It  is  subject  to 
development  and  change.  If,  in  all  phases  of  the  evolution 
of  a  race,  permanent  features  can  be  detected,  they  must  be 
attributed  to  some  deeper  cause,  and  religious  precepts 
themselves  must  be  assumed  to  have  found  acceptance 
because  they  corresponded  on  the  whole  to  the  aboriginal 
temperament  of  the  race.  Following  some  modern  Jewish 


THE  PEOPLE  153 

writers  and,  indirectly,  Spanish  writers  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  Sombart  finds  the  explanation  of  these  permanent 
Jewish  qualities  in  the  nomadic  character  of  the  tribes  that 
formed  the  Jewish  people.  During  the  period  of  their 
wanderings  in  the  desert — a  period  estimated  to  have  lasted 
many  thousands  of  years — the  Jews  acquired  an  ineradic- 
ably  nomadic  character.  On  the  hot  sandy  wastes,  wander- 
ing from  oasis  to  oasis,  the  race  characteristics  of  the  Jews 
became  fixed,  their  blood  acquired  its  peculiar  quality. 
Without  a  present,  ever  looking  forward  to  a  brilliant  future, 
carrying  with  them  their  treasures,  they  passed  from  region 
to  region,  from  country  to  country,  from  people  to  people, 
nowhere  taking  firm  root,  not  even  in  Canaan,  the  Promised 
Land.  Sombart  believes  that  if  the  Jews  had  remained  in  the 
East  or  among  quick-witted,  "  hot-blooded  "  peoples,  modern 
capitalism  would  never  have  been  created.  But  the  migration 
of  the  Jews  from  Spain  and  Portugal  to  the  North  of  Europe  and 
their  settlement  among  "cold-blooded,"  slow-minded  Northern 
peoples,  led,  after  the  discovery  of  America,  to  the  develop- 
ment of  capitalized  trade  and  industry  in  its  modern  form,  a 
development  facilitated  by  the  dispersion  of  the  nomadically 
constituted  Jews  throughout  the  Old  and  New  Worlds. 

Like  many  a  German  scientific  system,  Sombart's  thesis 
would  have  gained  in  plausibility  had  it  been  less  completely 
worked  out.  In  some  respects  it  is  probable  that  Oriental 
quick-wittedness,  long  familiarity  with  financial  transactions 
in  theory  and  practice,  dispersion  in  various  countries  and 
an  exceptional  position  among  the  peoples  of  the  earth, 
enabled  the  Jews  to  take  the  greatest  advantage  of  "  epoch- 
making  "  events  like  the  invention  of  the  compass,  of  printing, 
and  of  the  steam  engine,  just  as  they  subsequently  exploited 
the  electric  telegraph  and  other  forms  of  scientific  enterprise. 
The  Medieval  guild  system,  the  limitation  of  commercial 
and  industrial  activity,  the  principle  that  an  honest  merchant 
must  give  good  value  for  money  and  should  disdain  to 
seduce  his  neighbour's  customers,  were  bound  to  give  way 
before  Jewish  impatience  of  artificial  restrictions  and  the 


154  THE  HAPSBURG   MONARCHY 

Jewish  practice  of  hawking  wares,  cutting  prices,  advertising 
and  selling  on  credit.  Bills  of  exchange,  stocks,  shares, 
bank-notes  and  debentures,  the  creation  of  Stock  and 
Produce  Exchanges,  the  financing  of  Princes,  Governments, 
and  commercial  undertakings  are  doubtless  in  large  measure 
Jewish  inventions,  all  or  most  of  which  appear  to  be  contained 
in  germ  in  the  Talmud  and  its  doctrines.  But  it  seems  as 
serious  an  error  to  attribute  to  the  Jews  the  creation  of  the 
capitalist  system  as  it  would  be  to  make  them  responsible 
for  the  present  bureaucratization  of  finance  and  industry,  a 
process  which,  as  Sombart  himself  observes,  is  tending  to 
decrease  the  number  and  possibly  even  the  influence  of 
Jews  in  the  management  of  big  financial  concerns  in  Germany 
and  other  countries.  Sombart  writes,  "To  all  appearances 
the  influence  of  the  Jewish  people  (in  economic  life)  has 
begun  quite  recently  to  diminish.  It  is  indubitable  and  can 
be  ascertained  by  simple  enumeration,  that  among  the 
managers  and  directors  of  the  big  banks,  Jewish  names  are 
becoming  rarer.  The  Jewish  element  seems  really  to  be 
losing  ground.  It  is  interesting  to  enquire  into  the  causes 
of  this  significant  phenomenon.  They  may  be  of  several 
kinds.  On  the  one  hand,  non-Jews  have  adapted  themselves 
more  completely  to  the  requirements  of  the  capitalist  system, 
they  have  become  '  skilled '  whereas  the  Jews  have  partly 
lost  their  former  special  aptitude  for  capitalism  in  consequence 
of  the  improvement  of  their  social  position  and  of  a  decrease 
in  the  intensity  of  their  religious  feeling.  On  the  other  hand, 
we  must  probably  look  for  the  causes  of  the  diminution  of 
Jewish  economic  influence  in  the  change  that  has  taken 
place  in  the  conditions  of  economic  life  itself.  Capitalist 
undertakings  are  transforming  themselves  more  and  more 
into  bureaucratic  administrations  that  do  not  require  special 
trading  capacity  in  the  same  degree  as  formerly.  Bureau- 
cratism is  taking  the  place  of  commercialism."  l 

There  are  other  reasons  than  those  mentioned  by  Som- 
bart for  a  diminution  of  Jewish  influence  in  and  over  big 

1  Sombart,  op.  cit.  Vorwort,  pp.  viii-ix. 


THE  PEOPLE  155 

capitalist  undertakings.  Though  the  gregarious  instinct  is 
strong  in  the  Jew,  he  remains  psychologically  an  individualist, 
refractory  to  external  discipline,  and  a  speculator  in  the 
widest  sense  of  the  term.  A  circumscribed,  bureaucratic 
career  has  few  attractions  for  him.  His  mental  sensitiveness 
leads  him  to  prefer  other  walks  of  life  and  to  transfer  to 
them  his  trading  proclivities  in  proportion  as  finance  and 
industry  become  bureaucratized.  Art,  the  stage,  the  law, 
music,  journalism,  and  politics  appeal  to  him  as  offering  a 
freer  field  for  his  activities.  Confidence  in  his  own  superior 
mental  agility  has  always  made  him  an  advocate  of  "  liberty" 
and  rendered  him  impatient  of  restrictions.  Hence  his 
political  Radicalism.  The  body  of  economico  -  political 
doctrine  known  as  "  Liberalism "  was  largely  built  up  by 
Jewish,  crypto-Jewish  or  pro-Jewish  writers  ;  and,  in  German- 
speaking  countries  especially,  the  "  Progressive  "  parties  have 
been  recruited  largely  from  Jewish  politicians  and  supported 
by  Jewish  organs.  The  German  advocates  of  the  "  Manchester 
School "  in  economics  were  principally  Jews,  whose  object 
seemed  to  be  the  establishment  of  freedom  of  the  kind 
defined  by  Kiirnberger,  in  another  connexion,  as  "the  free 
fox  in  the  free  hen-roost."  The  State  Socialism,  opposed 
by  Bismarck  to  German  Radical  and  Social  Democratic 
tendencies,  bore  a  strongly  anti-Jewish  character,  just  as  the 
Christian  Socialism  of  Lueger  was  anti-semitic  and  aimed  at 
protecting  the  economically  unfit  against  the  most  glaring 
evils  of  unrestricted  capitalistic  enterprise.  In  Germany 
and  Austria -Hungary  at  least,  "Revolutionary"  Socialism 
and  Social  Democracy  have  been  guided  by  Jewish  leaders 
and  inspired  by  Jewish  doctrine.  Karl  Marx,  a  Jew,  wrote 
Das  Kapital,  the  socialist  economic  bible  ;  Lassalle,  his  rival 
and  co-founder  of  the  German  Social  Democratic  Party,  was 
also  a  Jew  ;  Jewish  names  like  Singer,  Bernstein,  Arons, 
Fischer  and  Stadthagen  are  prominent  in  the  more  recent 
history  of  German  Socialism  ;  and,  to-day,  half  the  Socialist 
party  in  the  German  Reichstag  is  composed  of  Jews.  In 
Austria- Hungary  the  spread  of  Socialism  has  been  largely 


156  THE  HAPSBURG   MONARCHY 

the  result  of  Jewish  propaganda.  Dr.  Victor  Adler,  the 
founder  and  leader  of  the  Austrian  party,  is  a  Jew,  as  are 
many  of  his  followers.  In  Hungary  the  party  was  also 
founded  and  inspired  by  Jews.  These  phenomena  are 
doubtless  attributable  in  part  to  the  quickness  of  Jewish 
intelligence  and  to  the  ingrained  Jewish  proclivity  to  discount 
the  future  or,  so  to  speak,  to  deal  in  "  futures,"  political  as 
well  as  commercial.  Recognition  of  the  fact  that  the  capital- 
istic system  tends  to  develop  in  the  direction  foreseen  by 
Marx,  and  that  the  casting  vote  in  the  great  struggle 
between  the  State  and  wealthy  capitalistic  corporations  is 
likely  to  be  given  by  the  organized  masses  of  the  people, 
has  undoubtedly  influenced  the  more  wide-awake  of  the 
Jews  and  induced  them  to  strive  in  time  to  control  the 
masses  through  Socialist  organizations,  in  the  hope  of 
securing  a  potent  influence  upon  legislation  and  upon  the 
future  construction  of  society.  Socialism  possesses  to  boot 
the  virtue  of  being  an  antidote  to  economic  anti-semitism. 
The  stock  reply  of  German  Socialist  leaders  to  the  attacks 
of  anti-semites  and  to  the  grumblings  of  their  own  followers 
against  the  deleterious  effects  of  Jewish  economic  activity,  is 
that  the  evils  complained  of  are  inherent  in  the  capitalist 
system  of  which  the  Jews  are,  it  is  true,  the  most  prominent 
representatives  but  which  are  not  specifically  Jewish  ;  and 
that  the  only  means  of  removing  these  evils  is  to  be  found 
in  the  struggle  of  classes,  the  organization  of  a  class-conscious 
proletariate,  and  in  the  conquest  and  reformation  of  society 
by  International  Revolutionary  Social  Democracy. 

Whatever  its  cause  or  causes,  the  prominence  of  Jews 
in  contemporary  Socialist  movements,  as  in  the  Liberal  and 
Radical  movements  of  older  generations,  is  a  fact  too  well 
established  to  need  demonstration.  The  sayings  that  the 
Jews  are  as  yeast  working  in  the  lump  of  human  society,  or 
that  they  are  as  foreign  matter  in  the  blood-social,  causing 
fever  by  their  presence,  go  but  a  little  way  to  explain  the 
phenomenon.  Neither  is  the  euphemistic  thesis  which  attri- 
butes the  revolutionary  activity  of  Jews  to  a  strong  sense  of 


THE  PEOPLE  157 

abstract  Justice  that  impels  them  to  revolt  against  social  and 
political  inequalities,  much  more  adequate  an  explanation 
than  the  more  cynical  argument  that  the  Jews  invariably 
favour  the  removal  of  disabilities  and  external  restrictions, 
because  they  are  conscious  of  their  ability  to  outwit  com- 
petitors in  an  open  field.  If  any  explanation  is  to  be  found, 
it  must  probably  be  sought  in  the  mental  characteristic 
which  most  distinguishes  the  Jew  from  the  Indo-German  or 
"Aryan."  This  characteristic  is  superabundant  intellectualism 
or  power  of  abstract  ratiocination.  Were  the  world  governed 
by  logic  and  organized  on  rational  principles  deduced  from 
established  premises,  the  Jew  might  excel  in  constructive 
statecraft.  His  faculty  of  concentration,  his  intense  inner 
life,  his  freedom  from  the  trammels  of  place  and  country,  his 
practical  rationalism  and  workaday  purposefulness  would  fit 
him  in  a  peculiar  degree  to  rule  a  world  organized  on  some 
symmetrical,  intellectual  plan.  In  such  a  world  every  act 
would  have  its  reasonable  object,  every  political  privilege  its 
well-defined  constitutional  sanction.  Socialist  movements, 
particularly  those  of  the  Marxist  type,  are  directed  towards  the 
rationalization  of  the  social  structure  and  the  substitution  of 
"  wits  "  for  force  in  national  and  international  life.  Sombart 
maintains,  in  the  course  of  an  acute  analysis  of  Jewish 
psychology,1  that  "the  whole  Jewish  question  is  contained  in 
the  words  "  Mojech  versus  Kojech "  (brain  against  force) ; 
and  cites  the  characteristic  Yiddish  proverb,  "Gott  soil 
behuten  var  jiidischen  Mojech  und  var  gojischen  Kojech " 
(May  God  preserve  from  Jewish  wits  and  Gentile  force). 
The  belief  that  "  Force  rules  the  world  still,  has  ruled  it, 
shall  rule  it"  is  antithetical  to  the  Jewish  ideal  which  is 
expressed  in  the  modern  Jewish-Radical  thesis  that  the 
internationalization  of  business  and  financial  interests  must 
in  the  long  run  prevent  the  outbreak  of  wars,  because  wars 
will  not  be  "  worth  while."  "  Worth  while  "  and  "  not  worth 
while  "  are  essentially  Jewish  conceptions,  just  as  the  feeling 
defined  by  an  Irish-American  wag  in  the  phrase  "  Not  all 

1  Die  Juden  und  das  Wirtsckaftsleben,  pp.  312-328. 


158  THE  HAPSBURG   MONARCHY 

the  '  worth  whiles '  of  life  can  be  expressed  in  terms  of  the 
United  States  currency  "  is  fundamentally  non-Jewish.  Jewish 
activity  has  always  some  rational  purpose  in  view — usually 
an  immediate  purpose.  If  there  be  a  chance  of  ulterior 
advantage,  religious,  intellectual,  financial,  or  political,  so 
much  the  better.  But  acquiescence  in  an  apparently  pur- 
poseless universe,  joy  in  valueless  things,  a  sense  of  forming 
part  of  a  world  that  is  rolling  on  throughout  the  ages  with 
no  discoverable  aim  or  object,  a  desire  for  mystic  communion 
with  the  Spirit  of  the  Cosmos,  are  rarely  to  be  found  in  Jewish 
minds.  As  Sombart  truly  observes,  the  semi-sentimental 
pessimism  of  modern  Jewish  writers  like  Schnitzler  and 
George  Hirschfeld  proceeds  from  a  conviction  of  the 
purposelessness  and,  therefore,  of  the  sadness  of  the  world. 
Childlike  delight  in  the  mere  fact  of  existence,  and  the  old 
Greek  joy  in  effort  without  care  for  result,  are  profoundly 
non-Jewish.  Goethe's  enquiry  in  "  Gott  und  Welt," 

"  Was  war"  ein  Gott,  der  nur  von  Aussen  stiesse  ? 
Im  Kreis  das  All  am  Finger  laufen  liesse  ?  " 

seems  to  be  directed  against  the  conception  of  a  Jehovah- 
like  deity  who,  standing  outside  the  universe,  controls 
everything  according  to  his  own  pleasure.  The  true  Jewish 
thinker  has  "  no  use "  for  an  illogical  universe  and  little 
admiration  for  irrational  Genius.  One  such,  in  dealing  with 
the  problem  of  races  and  the  purpose  of  civilization,  says,1 
"  In  civilized  man,  the  consciously  creative  intellect  replaces 
blind  instinct.  The  task  of  the  intellect  is  to  extinguish 
instinct,  to  replace  impulses  by  purposeful  will,  to  reflect 
instead  of  merely  perceiving.  The  individual  only  becomes 
a  complete  man  when  the  activity  of  his  reason  dissolves 
and  replaces  all  existing  predispositions  and  quenches  his 
instincts.  When  the  detachment  from  instinct  is  complete, 
we  have  before  us  absolute  Genius  with  its  entire  inner 
freedom  from  natural  law.  It  is  the  task  of  civilized  life  to 

1  J.    Zollschau,  Das  Rassenproblem   unter  besonderer  Beriicksichtigung  der 
theoretischen  Grundlagen  der  jiidischen  Rassenfrage  (1910),  p.  298. 


THE  PEOPLE  159 

emancipate  itself  from  all  mysticism,  from  everything  obscure 
and  impulsive  in  the  life  of  instinct,  and  to  develop  the 
purely  rational  form  of  the  intellect."  Judged  by  this 
standard,  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  Shakespeare,  and  Goethe,  who 
have  some  claim  to  rank  as  geniuses,  would  cut  a  poor  figure, 
even  if  they  were  admitted  to  be  embryonically  civilized  ! 
Such  a  civilization  would  leave  little  place  for  unreasoned 
perception,  for  spontaneous  delight  in  beauty, — natural, 
artistic,  or  moral.  Yet  this  delight  has  usually  been 
considered  an  index  of  civilization,  nay,  the  level  of  a 
civilization  has  been  judged  by  the  fineness  of  the  taste 
that  characterized  it.  Were  it  practicable,  this  Jewish 
conception  of  civilization  would  produce  a  world  of  in- 
tolerable rational  beings  similar  to  those  abstract  individuals 
conceived  by  orthodox  political  economists  ;  a  brainy,  brain- 
glorious,  uninhabitable  world,  a  universe  of  pharisaical,  hair- 
splitting ergotists  from  whom  the  breath  of  life  would  have 
departed. 

It  is  nevertheless  clear  that  the  penetrating  intelligence 
of  Jewish  minds  and  their  power  of  rapid  reasoning  and 
combination,  have  rendered  and  are  likely  to  render  valuable 
service  to  civilization  within  certain  limits,  especially  in  those 
branches  of  human  activity  that  are  susceptible  of  logical 
treatment.  The  danger  to  civilization  involved  in  the  Jewish 
Question  is  that  failure,  on  the  part  of  Jews  and  non-Jews 
alike,  to  perceive  the  profound  differences  between  the  Jewish 
and  the  non-Jewish  mentality,  together  with  the  concentra- 
tion of  financial  and  political  power  in  Jewish  hands,  may 
lead  once  again  to  those  instinctive  revolts  of  non-Jewish 
majorities  against  Jewish  minorities  that  figure  so  largely  in 
the  troubled  history  of  the  Jewish  people.  Jewish  immodera- 
tion and  non- Jewish  resentment  have,  again  and  again, 
impeded  what  might  have  been  fruitful  co-operation  for  the 
common  good.  The  Jews  themselves  scarcely  seem  to 
know  how  strongly  the  tide  of  anti-Jewish  feeling  is  already 
running  in  many  highly  civilized  countries.  Even  in  Ger- 
many, the  country  for  which  Ashkenazim  Jews  feel,  or 


160  THE   HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

profess  to  feel,  special  devotion,  recent  publications  of  a 
pronouncedly  anti-Jewish  character  have  met  with  singular 
success.  One  such1  roundly  proposes  the  expulsion  from 
Germany  of  all  Jews  not  possessing  German  citizenship  ;  the 
degradation  to  the  position  of  tolerated  aliens  of  all  Jews 
and  descendants  of  Jews,  whether  of  pure  or  mixed  blood, 
who  possessed  citizenship  and  were  registered  as  Jews  in 
1871  ;  the  exclusion  of  Jews,  baptized  and  unbaptized,  from 
all  public  offices,  from  service  in  the  army  and  navy,  from  the 
bar,  from  the  franchise  and  from  eligibility  to  Parliament,  from 
the  directorships  of  banking  companies  and  theatres,  from 
the  proprietorship  and  editorship  of  newspapers  and  from 
journalism  in  general.  The  Jews  should  also,  urges  this  writer, 
be  deprived  of  the  right  to  own  land  or  to  lend  money  on 
landed  mortgages,  and  should  be  required,  as  aliens,  to  pay 
double  taxation.  It  is  a  question,  he  adds,  of  "  saving  the 
German  soul."  That  a  book,  not  a  mere  pamphlet,  containing 
such  proposals  should  run  through  a  dozen  editions  in  a  few 
weeks  is  assuredly  a  sign  of  the  times.  Its  success  brings 
into  stronger  relief  the  importance  of  the  service  rendered  by 
Sombart  to  students  of  the  Jewish  question,  and  indeed  to 
the  Jews  themselves.  This  service  has  been  recognized  by 
competent  Jewish  writers  and  by  none  more  warmly  than  by 
Dr.  Jacob  Fromer,  the  Talmudist  above  referred  to,  whose 
striking  review  of  Sombart's  work  in  the  Zukunft  of  October 
28,  1911,  is  in  itself  an  illuminating  contribution  to  the 
literature  of  the  Jewish  question.  Despite  over-systematiza- 
tion  of  its  thesis  and  the  questionable  value  of  some  of  the 
evidence  adduced,  Sombart's  book,  writes  Dr.  Fromer,  is  of 
extraordinary  significance  for  the  study  of  Jewry.  In  virtue 
of  its  intuitive  recognition  of  historical  connexions,  its 
author's  deep  knowledge  of  the  well-nigh  inaccessible  litera- 
ture of  his  subject,  his  honest  effort  to  avoid  special  pleading 
and  to  view  questions  impartially,  the  book  surpasses  any- 
thing of  the  kind  hitherto  written.  It  is  the  first  serious 
attempt  to  approach  the  Jewish  problem  in  a  scientific  spirit, 
1  Wenn  Ich  der  Kaiser  watj,  by  Daniel  Frymann,  Leipzig,  1913,  pp.  71,  78. 


THE  PEOPLE  161 

and  to  employ  methods  that  ought  to  have  been  adopted 
from  the  beginning — the  method  of  seeking  for  knowledge. 
"  If  any  kind  of  solution  for  the  Jewish  problem  is  to  be 
found,  three  points  must  be  settled  ;  first,  whether  the  forces 
working  in  Jewry  are  not  so  valuable  as  to  merit  preservation, 
despite  the  disturbances  they  cause  in  the  life  of  the  peoples 
among  whom  the  Jews  live  ;  secondly,  whether,  in  any  case, 
these  forces  are  not  indestructible,  and  therefore  to  be  made 
the  best  of;  and  thirdly,  by  what  means  these  forces  can 
successfully  be  combated  if  they  prove  to  be  destructible 
and  of  inferior  quality.  If  the  need  for  knowledge  is  once 
recognized,  it  will  easily  be  understood  how  much  damage 
has  been  done  by  modern  Jewish  historians.  Nobody  who 
has  accustomed  himself  to  regard  things  from  their  stand- 
point can  acquire,  without  difficulty,  a  clear  and  accurate 
idea  of  Jewry."  The  modern  Jews,  whose  prototype  was 
Moses  Mendelsohn,  continues  Dr.  Fromer,  have  broken  with 
the  tradition  of  their  fathers  and  have  plainly  declared  that 
they  wish  to  remain  permanently  among  the  Gentiles  and 
to  be  absorbed  by  Gentile  civilization.  On  the  strength  of 
this  declaration  they  have  demanded  and  received  equality 
of  rights.  But  instead  of  stating  plainly  that  certain  ancient 
characteristics,  usages  and  views  were  bound  to  stick  to  the 
Jews  for  generations,  modern  Jewish  writers  have  systematic- 
ally striven  to  obscure  the  truth  and  to  render  yet  darker 
and  more  difficult  the  arduous  approaches  to  knowledge  of 
Jewry.  They  have  declared  Talmudism — the  central  organ 
into  which  the  sap  of  Jewry  has  flowed  since  Biblical  times, 
the  organ  that  has  nourished  all  Jewry,  the  Modern  not  less 
than  the  Orthodox,  and  has  worked  the  unprecedented 
miracle  of  keeping  a  landless  people  mentally  and  physically 
healthy  throughout  the  centuries — to  be  an  excrescence  raised 
on  the  body  of  Jewry  by  stress  of  untoward  circumstances. 
They  have  minutely  demonstrated  that  the  Jews  who  have 
remained  true  to  Tradition — the  overwhelming  majority  of 
the  nation — are  degenerates  from  type,  and  that  the  Ghetto, 
the  segregation  necessary  for  the  preservation  of  the  type, 

M 


162  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

the  Ghetto  in  which  the  Jews  have  always  lived  since  their 
entrance  into  History,  in  the  Land  of  Goshen  and  in  Canaan, 
in  Alexandria,  Rome,  Spain,  Portugal,  and  elsewhere,  is  an 
invention  of  the  peoples  in  whose  midst  they  have  dwelt ; 
and  that  the  Jewish  martyrdom,  the  inevitable  consequence 
of  voluntary  segregation,  has  in  all  times  and  places  been 
due  to  Gentile  brutality.  Finally,  these  modern  Jewish 
historians  have  removed  the  name  of  Jewry  from  the  list 
of  nations  and  have  represented  it  to  be  a  group  of  human 
beings  bound  together  merely  by  the  bond  of  a  religious 
denomination.  This  has  been  proclaimed  in  the  name  of 
Science,  Truth,  and  strict  "  objectivity  "  ! 

Professor  Sombart,  claims  Dr.  Fromer,  deserves  recog- 
nition as  the  first  non-Jewish  student  to  fight  his  way 
through  the  insulating  Talmudic  crust  into  clear  compre- 
hension of  Jewry  and  to  take  the  first  step  towards  agree- 
ment between  two  worlds  hitherto  strangers  to  each  other. 
But  the  question  arises,  What  is  Talmudic  Jewry,  and 
whence  the  power  of  the  Talmud  ?  The  Talmud,  answers 
Fromer,  is  largely  a  product  of  the  Pharisee  reaction  against 
Hellenism  with  which  Jewry  came  into  contact  after  the 
conquest  of  the  East  by  Alexander  the  Great.  The  Jews 
have  ever  been  influenced  by  two  tendencies — on  the  one 
hand  the  nomadic,  Mosaic,  Pharisee,  Talmudic  tendency, 
and,  on  the  other,  the  tendency  to  adapt  themselves  to  their 
environment,  to  become  assimilated  by  the  Gentiles  and  to 
forget  the  Law.  Their  yearnings  for  the  flesh-pots  of 
Egypt,  their  worship  of  the  golden  calf,  their  propensity  to 
intermarry  with  the  heathen  despite  the  warnings  of  the  Law 
and  the  Prophets,  show  how  strong  was  the  assimilationist 
tendency  from  the  beginning  of  their  recorded  or  symbolic 
history.  The  formidable  list  of  names  given  by  Ezra l 
proves  how  many  even  among  the  sons  of  the  priests  had 
married  strange  women ;  just  as  the  defiant  reply  of  the 
Jewish  women  to  Jeremiah  in  Egypt2  showed  the  extreme 
reluctance  of  the  Jews  to  cease  "  to  burn  incense  unto  the 

1  Ezra  x.  2  Jeremiah  xliv.  16-18  (Revised  Version). 


THE  PEOPLE  163 

Queen  of  Heaven,  and  to  pour  out  drink  offerings  unto  her, 
as  we  have  done,  we,  and  our  fathers,  our  kings,  and  our 
princes,  in  the  cities  of  Judah,  and  in  the  streets  of  Jerusalem." 
The  reason  for  this  reluctance  was  characteristic  of  the  profit 
and  loss  relationship  of  the  Jews  to  Jehovah,  as  indeed  to 
the  "  Queen  of  Heaven."  "  But  since  we  left  off  to  burn  in- 
cense to  the  Queen  of  Heaven,  and  to  pour  out  drink  offerings 
unto  her,  we  have  wanted  all  things,  and  have  been  consumed 
by  the  sword  and  indeed  by  the  famine."  The  history  of 
the  Jews  in  Canaan  is  largely  the  history  of  a  struggle 
between  the  nomadic,  Mosaic  tendency,  and  the  assimilationist 
agricultural  instinct  But,  in  the  long  run,  the  nomadic, 
Mosaic  tendency  always  proved  the  stronger  ;  and  the 
popularity  of  the  Pharisees  who,  with  their  strict  literal 
observance  of  the  Law,  incorporated  it,  is  a  sign  that  it  lay 
deep  in  the  temperament  of  the  people.  Whether  it  would 
have  succeeded  in  preserving  the  Jews  from  absorption  by 
other  peoples  and  races  had  not  the  impact  of  Greek  culture 
driven  Judaism  back  upon  itself  is  an  interesting  but  now 
largely  academic  question.  Against  the  Greek  teachings 
and  reasonings  that  threatened  to  seduce  the  Jewish 
intelligence,  and  did,  in  fact,  make  headway  among  the 
more  cultured  classes,  the  Assidean  party  waged  desperate 
war,  and  the  Pharisees,  the  spiritual  children  of  the  Assideans, 
completed  their  work.  "  The  preservation  of  Judaism  in  its 
ancient  exclusiveness  was  their  programme,"  writes  Mr.  G.  E. 
Abbot  (Israel  in  Europe ;  Hebraism  and  Hellenism^  p.  6). 
"All  public  undertakings,  all  national  acts  as  well  as  all 
private  transactions,  were  to  be  measured  by  the  rigid 
standard  of  religion.  The  Law  in  the  hands  of  the  Pharisees 
became  a  procrustean  bed  upon  which  the  mind  of  the 
nation  was  to  be  stretched  or  maimed  according  to  the 
requirements  of  nationalism  and  the  interpretations  of  the 
Scribes.  This  inflexible  orthodoxy,  with  its  concomitants 
of  discipline  and  sacrifice  of  individuality,  was  in  perfect 
accord  with  the  Hebrew  temperament,  and  the  Pharisees 
must  be  regarded  as  the  interpreters  of  the  views  dear  to  the 


1 64  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

great  mass  of  their  compatriots."  To  the  Sophia  of  the 
Greeks  the  Pharisee  opposed  the  "  Law,"  the  Torah,  which 
he  meditated  and  commented  upon  with  the  subtlety  of  a 
casuist  and  the  gratitude  of  a  shipwrecked  mariner  who  has 
found  a  plank  of  safety.  The  study  of  the  Torah  day  and 
night  and  the  observance  of  its  innumerable  ceremonial 
precepts,  became  the  ideal  of  Jewish  piety.  "  Blessed  is  the 
man  that  walketh  not  in  the  counsel  of  the  ungodly  .  .  . 
nor  sitteth  in  the  seat  of  the  scornful.  But  his  delight 
is  in  the  law  of  the  Lord,  and  in  His  law  doth  he  meditate 
day  and  night.  .  .  .  Whatsoever  he  doeth  shall  prosper" * 
Here  again  the  profit  and  loss  relationship  to  the 
Deity  is  clearly  indicated.  As  Dr.  Fromer  observes, 
nothing  in  the  Jewish  religion  is  done  for  nothing,  every- 
thing has  its  reason  and  object.  "  This  original  trait  of 
cool-headed  piety  runs  from  the  Patriarchs  by  way  of 
Mosaism  and  Talmudism  uninterruptedly  down  to  the 
present  day.  There  are  no  essential  differences  between 
the  service  of  Abraham  to  Jehovah  and  the  religiosity  of  the 
pious  men  who  predominate  in  the  Ghetto.  Both  are  based 
on  a  do  ut  des  system  and  are  diametrically  opposed  to  the 
Christian  doctrine  of  unearned  grace."  2 

The  Sadducees  struggled  for  centuries  against  the 
Pharisee  tendency  to  wrap  Judaism  in  an  insulating  mantle 
of  precepts  and  commentaries,  but  the  fall  of  Jerusalem 
decided  the  struggle  definitely  in  favour  of  the  Pharisees,  who 
so  multiplied  commentaries  upon  the  Law  that  codification 
became  indispensable.  A  code  named  Mishna  (Doctrine) 
was  elaborated.  It  consisted  of  six  parts  dealing  with  agri- 
culture, feasts,  marriage  law,  the  civil  and  penal  law,  the  law  of 
the  Temple  and  cleanliness.  The  Mishna  became  in  its  turn 
an  object  of  veneration,  study,  comment,  and  casuistical 
interpretation.  Every  letter  and  syllable  was  examined  and 
stretched  to  its  utmost  capacity.  From  generation  to 
generation  the  Mishna  commentaries  grew  until  their  volume 
became  unmanageable.  Once  more  codification  proved 

1  Ps.  i.  2  Die  Zukunft,  Oct.  28,  1911,  p.  113. 


THE  PEOPLE  165 

necessary.  Towards  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century  A.D.  a 
Mishna  Code  was  formed  in  Palestine  and,  at  the  end  of  the 
same  century,  a  second  code  at  Babylon.  Both  codes  were 
called  "  Talmud  "  (Research  or  Investigation).  While  the 
Palestine  Talmud  played  an  insignificant  part  in  the  sub- 
sequent life  of  Jewry,  the  Babylonian  Talmud  was  regarded 
as  a  national  possession.  It  has  remained  "  The  Book  "  for 
Orthodox  Jewry.  It  replaced  the  Torah  as  the  fountain  of 
all  wisdom  and  as  the  guide  in  every  detail  of  daily  life. 
The  Talmud,  despite  its  character  as  a  commentary  upon  a 
commentary  upon  a  Law  of  uncertain  origin,  has  not  only 
preserved  the  Jewish  Nation  but  has  imbued  it  with  a 
Pharisee  spirit  and  separated  it,  perhaps  for  ever,  from  the 
main  stream  of  human  culture.  The  teachings  of  Christ 
were  a  running  protest  against  the  mummifying  influence  of 
Phariseeism,  but  a  protest  addressed,  in  the  first  place,  to 
Jews  and  based  on  the  approaching  fulfilment  of  Messianic 
prophecy.  Pauline  Christianity  went  further,  took  the 
offensive  against  Hellenism  and  vanquished  it,  but  its 
victory  was  bought  at  the  expense  of  Jewry  and  of  the 
distinction  between  Jew  and  Gentile.  Pharisee  Jewry,  on 
the  other  hand,  continued  to  "  kill  the  prophets,"  remained 
on  the  defensive  behind  its  phylacteries  and  commentaries, 
and  alternately  took  refuge  in  the  Ark  of  the  Talmud,  in 
which  it  has  lived  to  this  day. 

An  enlightening  picture  of  the  bearing  of  the  Talmud 
upon  the  Jewish  question  is  given  in  Dr.  Jakob  Fromer's 
autobiographical  book,  Ghetto-Dammerung.1  The  intensity 
of  the  respect  that  surrounds  the  learned  Talmudist  in  the 
Ghetto  even  though  he  be  poverty-stricken  and  accustomed 
to  rely  for  his  sustenance  upon  the  meagre  earnings  of  his 
wife  ;  the  economic  value  of  children  versed  in  the  Talmud 
and  in  commentaries  like  the  Schulchan  Aruch  Code  can 
hardly  be  conceived  by  the  Gentile  who  finds  no  counter- 
part for  such  phenomena  in  the  range  of  his  experience. 
Boys  able  smartly  to  solve  questions  on  the  interpretation 

1  Schuster  &  Loeffler,  Berlin,  1911. 


1 66  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

of  the  Law  are  much  sought  after  as  husbands  for  marriage- 
able "  heiresses."  Such  questions  are  often  of  the  most 
pettifogging  kind.  Dr.  Fromer  gives  an  example  of  the 
"  problems  "  that  formed  part  of  his  "  discursive  training  "  in 
the  study  of  the  Talmud.  Discursive  study,  he  writes,1 
consists  of  collecting,  examining,  and  comparing  everything 
that  the  Talmud  and  its  commentators  say  on  a  given 
subject.  Some  questions  are  juridical  as,  for  instance,  "  May 
a  judge  be  called  as  a  witness  ?  "  Others  are  psychological, 
e.g.  "  A  man  has  admitted  half  of  a  total  liability  that  is  not 
susceptible  of  proof.  Some  Talmudists  consider  him  credible 
since  he  might  have  denied  the  whole  liability.  Others 
think  that  to  deny  the  whole  liability  would  require  more 
impudence  than  everybody  possesses,  and  conclude  that  he 
only  admitted  half  of  his  liability  out  of  weakness."  On 
this  point  the  youthful  Talmudist  is  expected  to  give  a 
reasoned  opinion.  Further,  "  An  egg  laid  on  the  Sabbath 
day  may  not  be  eaten.  But  what  if  half  of  it  be  laid  before 
sundown  on  Friday  and  half  after  sundown,  that  is  to  say 
on  the  Sabbath  ?  "  The  legendary  curate  would  reply,  "  Parts 
of  it  are  excellent,"  but  the  Talmudist  cannot  escape  from 
his  problems  by  joking.  He  must  conscientiously  work 
through  the  countless  ritual,  business,  social  and  legal 
problems,  and  the  smarter  or  the  more  casuistical  his 
answers  the  greater  his  renown.  Dr.  Fromer  gives  a  striking 
account  of  his  experience  when  on  his  way  to  visit  his  uncle, 
the  miracle-working  Rabbi  of  Szochlin.  Among  the  pilgrims 
to  the  Rabbi  were  a  number  of  Jews  on  the  look-out  for 
profitable  husbands  for  their  daughters.  One  such  met  an 
acquaintance  who  was  accompanied  by  his  son,  a  weedy 
youth  of  fifteen  years,  whom  the  acquaintance  sought  to 
embarrass  by  questions  on  Talmudic  problems.  The  boy 
"  lay  low,"  answered  warily,  and  presently  turned  the  tables 
on  his  questioner,  who,  struck  by  the  boy's  knowledge,  asked 
the  father  whether  a  wife  had  already  been  found  for  him. 
The  father  replied  scornfully  that  the  Schadchonim  (marriage- 

1  Ghetto-Dammerung)  p.  20. 


THE  PEOPLE  167 

brokers)  were  always  bidding  for  the  boy,  but  that  there  was 
no  hurry  because  his  learning  grew  from  day  to  day,  and  with 
it  his  value.  Bargaining  then  began.  It  ended  with  the 
conclusion  of  a  contract  under  which  the  boy  was  bound  to 
marry  the  questioner's  daughter,  three  years  his  senior,  in 
return  for  a  payment  of  ^40  and  ten  years'  keep  for  the  boy- 
husband,  including  meat  every  day  ! 

Similar  scenes  are  often  represented  in  the  Jewish  jargon 
plays — plays  usually  full  of  wit  and  pathos,  full,  especially, 
of  the  characteristic  "  Jewish  jokes  "  which  the  Jews  love  to 
crack  even  at  their  own  expense,  though  rarely  without  pride 
in  the  smartness  of  Jewish  intelligence.  Those  who  have  never 
lived  amongst  or  come  into  regular  contact  with  Jews  in  the 
mass  can  hardly  realize  how  completely  the  Jewish  differs  in  its 
essence  from  the  Gentile  world,  and  how  acute  are  the  issues 
with  which  the  Jewish  problem  confronts  modern  civilization. 
The  Jews  themselves  are  now  divided  into  two  main  schools 
of  thought  upon  the  problem,  the  one  more  or  less  assimila- 
tionist,  the  other  more  or  less  Zionist  The  standpoint 
of  the  assimilationists  is  roughly  that  the  entire  removal 
of  restrictions  and  disabilities  is  all  that  is  needed  for  the 
problem  to  be  solved  automatically  by  the  gradual  absorp- 
tion of  the  Jews.  Where  no  disabilities  exist,  the  Jewish 
question,  they  contend,  rapidly  assumes  an  inoffensive 
denominational  character  and  ceases  to  have  ethnical  or 
political  significance ;  even  the  religious  practices  that  tend 
to  preserve  the  children  of  Israel  as  a  "  peculiar  people " 
lose  intensity  under  the  benign  influence  of  Gentile  culture 
and  society.  To  some  extent  the  assimilationists  take  up 
the  old  Sadducee  standpoint ;  and  it  would  be  easy  to  prove 
their  claim  that,  when  granted  complete  equality,  numbers 
of  Jews  have  become,  to  all  outward  appearances,  good 
Englishmen,  Germans,  Frenchmen,  Italians,  or  Americans. 
The  debatable  point  is  whether  the  thesis  that  appears  to 
hold  good  in  regard  to  some  individuals  would  hold  good  for 
the  mass,  always  supposing  the  mass  to  be  anxious  for 
assimilation.  On  this  point  it  is  impossible  to  speak  with 


168  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

confidence,  especially  in  the  affirmative.  The  intensity  of 
the  Jewish  race  character  is  such  that  the  Jewish  strain  will 
persist  for  generations  in  non-Jewish  families  into  which 
Jewish  blood  has  once  entered.  The  strain  may  be  pro- 
ductive of  beauty  or  genius,  or  it  may,  on  the  other  hand, 
bring  the  mental  derangement  so  common  in  the  better-class 
Jewish  families.  In  his  pamphlet,  Die  Zukunft  der  Juden^ 
Werner  Sombart  gives  on  the  authority  of  Dr.  Wieth- 
Knudsen  some  striking,  though  incomplete,  statistical  data 
tending  to  show  marriages  between  Jews  and  non-Jews  to 
be  less  fruitful  than  the  average  of  purely  Jewish  or  purely 
non-Jewish  unions  in  analogous  circumstances,  and  asserts 
that  the  children  of  mixed  marriages  are  apt  to  lack  mental 
unity  and  equilibrium.  It  is  indeed  a  question  whether  the 
children  of  mixed  marriages  escape,  in  the  first  generation 
at  least,  the  dualism  of  character  noticeable  in  half-breeds 
the  world  over.  When  they  escape  it  the  characteristics  of 
one  race  usually  dominate  those  of  the  other.  The  present 
writer  has  in  his  possession  a  remarkable  letter  from  the  son 
of  an  Austrian-Jewish  father  and  non-Jewish  mother,  born 
and  educated  in  Western  Europe,  and,  to  all  intents  and 
purposes,  completely  assimilated  as  regards  taste,  habits,  and 
general  views  of  life.  The  letter  was  written  in  the  autumn 
of  1905  from  the  Hungarian  capital — a  city  commonly 
nick-named  "  Judapest."  It  runs  : — 

"...  I  have  for  years  past  realized  to  a  partial  extent 
(for  wholly  to  understand  its  endless  bifurcations  and  rami- 
fications must  ever  be  beyond  my  grasp)  the  vital  impor- 
tance to  nationalities  and  the  political  and  economic 
significance  of  the  Jewish  question.  But  I  was  not  pre- 
pared, nor  do  I  believe  that  one  well-informed  person  in  a 
hundred  would  have  been  prepared,  for  what  I  have  met 
with  here.  Having  heard  of  the  Budapest  '  night  life,'  pre- 
pared therefore  to  hear  the  sound  of  revelry  and  to  return 
exhausted  from  the  customary  tour  des  Grands  Dues,  I  found, 
to  my  amazement,  that  the  streets  were  lifeless,  the  theatres, 
cafe's,  music  halls,  and  even  less  reputable  places  deserted. 


THE  PEOPLE  169 

The  Day  of  Atonement  was  at  hand  !  In  this  populous 
centre  of  a  nation,  on  the  fast-day  of  an  alien  race,  such  life 
(miserable  excuse  as  it  may  be  for  setting  at  nought  the 
reality  of  Death)  as  involves  the  spending  of  money  and  its 
possession  is,  for  the  period  of  the  fast,  entirely  suspended, 
and  the  city,  famous  throughout  Europe  as  the  Mecca  of 
the  feteur  and  of  those  hungry  for  licence  and  debauch,  is 
dead.  How  many  reflections  this  brings  in  its  train  you  can 
imagine  better  than  I  can  describe  even  had  I  time ! 

"  Is  it  indeed  true  that  this  race  battens  so  upon  the 
land  it  has  fastened  its  tentacles  on  that,  whether  the  race 
be  comparable  with  orchid  or  spider,  nothing  remains  but 
the  dead  trunk  or  the  bloodless  corpse  ?  Is  it  true  that  all 
the  banking,  all  the  distributing  trades,  nearly  all  the  retail 
trades  and  most  of  the  land  are  in  Jewish  hands ;  that 
the  Hungarian  noble  leaves  his  land  to  Jews  who  own  the 
peasants,  body  and  soul ;  that  by  usury  they  extract  from 
the  smaller  freeholders  what  they  possess,  and  that,  having 
exploited  the  nation  which  harbours  them  from  the  sowing 
to  the  reaping,  they  then  minister  to  their  physical  weak- 
nesses and  their  moral  by  the  ultimate  exploitation  of  the 
tavern  and  the  brothel  ? 

"  If  this,  or  nearly  this,  be  true,  there  is  no  Hungarian 
question  in  the  true  sense.  There  is  a  Jewish  question,  and 
this  terrible  race  means  not  only  to  master  one  of  the 
grandest  warrior  nations  in  the  world,  but  it  means,  and  is 
consciously  striving,  to  enter  the  lists  against  the  other 
great  race  of  the  north  (the  Russians),  the  only  one 
that  has  hitherto  stood  between  it  and  its  goal  of  world- 
power. 

"  Am  I  wrong  ?  Tell  me.  For  already  England  and 
France  are,  if  not  actually  dominated  by  Jews,  very  nearly 
so,  while  the  United  States,  by  the  hands  of  those  whose 
grip  they  are  ignorant  of,  are  slowly  but  surely  yielding  to 
that  international  and  insidious  hegemony.  Remember  that 
I  am  half  a  Jew  by  blood,  but  that  in  all  that  I  have  power 
to  be  I  am  not.  I  admire  their  strength,  their  constancy, 


1 70  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

their  intelligence,  but  I  hate  the  Jew  because  of  his  nature 
he  is  evil,  while  the  Aryan  of  his  nature  is  good." 

No  full-blooded  "  Aryan "  could  write  more  incisively, 
however  meagre  his  sympathies  for  the  Jews,  and  none  could 
write  so  bitterly  because  none  can  have  experienced  the 
struggle  between  the  two  race-natures  that  goes  on  in  the 
minds  of  half-breeds  when  they  are  conscious  of  their  dual 
mentality.  Some  full-blooded  Jews  have,  however,  written 
with  almost  equal  bitterness  ;  Heine,  for  instance,  who  wrote 
of  his  own  people  :  "  This  race  of  Original  Evil  ( UrubelvolK] 
has  long  been  damned,  and  drags  from  Age  to  Age  its 
tortures  of  the  damned.  Oh  !  this  Egypt !  Her  products 
defy  time  ;  her  pyramids  still  stand  unshaken  ;  her  mummies 
are  as  imperishable  as  that  mummy  people  which  wanders 
across  the  Earth  bound  up  in  its  old  wrappings  of  the  Letter, 
a  case-hardened  fragment  of  world -history,  a  ghost  that 
sustains  itself  by  trading  in  I.O.U.'s  and  old  trousers."  But 
rhapsody  cannot  elucidate  the  Jewish  problem.  Knowledge 
and  the  understanding  born  of  knowledge  are  needful. 
Though  the  problem  in  itself  may  be  found  insoluble,  know- 
ledge will  at  least  permit  outsiders  to  assume  in  regard  to  it 
some  attitude  less  barren  than  one  of  mere  antisemitism,  and 
will,  on  the  other  hand,  prevent  them  from  being  misled  by 
"  semi-official  assimilationist "  statements  of  the  Jewish  case. 
Such  statements  are  usually  based  upon  the  unproved  assump- 
tion that  the  Jews  are  perfectly  assimilable.  That  Jews  have 
a  remarkable  faculty  for  external  adaptation  to  environment 
is  incontestable,  but  it  remains  to  be  seen  whether,  with  all 
their  pliancy  and  pertinacious  direction  of  will  toward  their 
immediate  object,  they  are  capable  of  adapting  themselves 
internally.  Experience  and  observation  now  extending  over 
more  than  twenty-one  years,  in  Germany,  France,  Italy,  and 
Austria-Hungary,  incline  me  to  answer  this  question  in  the 
negative.  Of  the  two  main  branches  of  Jewry  in  Europe — 
the  Sephardim  or  Spanish-Portuguese,  and  the  Ashkenazim 
or  German-Polish-Russian  Jews — the  Sephardim  are  un- 
doubtedly the  better  stock.  In  their  case  adaptation  and 


THE  PEOPLE  171 

assimilation  seem  to  be  easier  than  in  the  case  of  the 
Ashkenazim,  though,  among  the  Sephardim  also,  the  in- 
tensity of  the  race-type  and  of  its  mental  characteristics 
seems  almost  invincible.  Quantitively,  the  question  is,  in 
their  case,  less  urgent  than  in  that  of  the  Ashkenazim, 
because  they  are  fewer  in  number  and  less  prone  to  congre- 
gate voluntarily  in  Ghettos.  Even  where  they  are  most 
numerous,  as  at  Salonica  and  other  Balkan  centres,  the 
Sephardim  do  not  present  a  "  problem  "  in  the  same  sense 
as  do  the  Ashkenazim  Jews  of  Galicia,  Russian  Poland, 
Posen,  the  East-End  of  London,  and  New  York.  It  is 
besides  an  interesting  historical  fact  that  the  Sephardim 
have  repeatedly  made  a  stand  against  or  assumed  the  con- 
trol of  the  Ashkenazim.  In  the  seventeenth  century  at 
Hamburg,  for  instance,  the  Portuguese  Jewish  community 
made  itself  responsible  towards  the  authorities  for  the 
Tedescos,  or  German  Jews,  and  obliged  these  Tedescos  to 
bind  themselves  not  to  trade  in  stolen  goods  nor  to  engage 
in  other  kinds  of  dishonest  business.  But  within  a  few 
months  the  elders  of  the  Tedescos  were  summoned  before 
the  presidency  of  the  Sephardim  and  taxed  with  violation 
of  their  engagements.  Similar  and  even  more  drastic  in- 
stances could  be  cited  from  the  history  of  the  Sephardim  in 
France.  Though  Sephardim  and  Ashkenazim  often  present 
a  united  front  to  the  non  -  Jewish  world,  the  distinction 
between  them  is  well  marked  in  Jewry  itself,  where  the 
Sephardim  enjoy  the  greater  prestige.  From  the  assimi- 
lationist  standpoint,  however,  the  only  serious  problem  is 
that  of  the  Ashkenazim.  These  may  broadly  be  described  as 
"  German  Jews,"  whether  their  country  of  immediate  origin 
be  Russia,  Austria-Hungary,  or  Germany.  As  to  the  origin 
of  their  Jewish  name,  theories  and  legends  differ  even  among 
their  own  learned  men.  Some  claim  descent  from  Ashkenaz, 
son  of  Gomer  and  grandson  of  Japheth  ;  others  put  forward 
a  theory  to  the  effect  that,  after  the  fall  of  Jerusalem,  in 
which  the  flower  of  the  nation  in  Palestine  perished,  a  part 
of  the  plebs  was  carried  into  slavery  by  the  Romans  and 


172  THE   HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

settled  in  a  district,  corresponding  to  the  present  Bavarian 
Palatinate,  called  Ascania,  after  its  first  governor,  Ascanius. 
The  speech  of  these  Ascanian  or  Ashkenazim  Jews  became 
corrupted  by  the  German  dialects  of  their  neighbours,  and 
acquired  the  semi-German  basis  noticeable  in  the  Yiddish 
(Judisch}  jargon.  When  persecution  ultimately  drove 
the  bulk  of  them  to  accept  the  protection  offered  by  the 
Kings  of  Poland,  they  migrated  in  large  numbers  to  Poland 
and  settled  in  the  present  provinces  of  Galicia,  Russian 
Poland,  and  Posen.  Here  their  jargon  became  further  cor- 
rupted by  the  addition  of  Polish  and  Russian  elements. 
Many  Jewish  families  retained,  however,  their  German 
names,  a  circumstance  which,  together  with  the  subsequent 
imposition  of  German  names  by  Maria  Theresa,  is  held  to 
explain  the  frequency  of  German  patronymics  among  the 
Polish  and  Russian  Jews. 

This  theory,  in  which  fact  and  fancy  seem  to  be  in- 
extricably mingled,  was  advanced  to  the  writer  by  a  learned 
Austrian  Hebrew  in  explanation  of  the  pro-German  tendencies 
displayed  by  Ashkenazim  Jews  the  world  over.  "  German," 
said  this  pundit,  "  is  the  basis  of  our  jargon,  and,  next  to 
Palestine,  Germany  is  the  country  which  we  regard  as  our 
home.  Hence  our  sentimental  leaning  towards  Germany." 
Though  other  and  less  sentimental  explanations  of  the 
undoubted  pro-German  leanings  of  the  Ashkenazim  have 
been  put  forward — explanations  often  summarized  in  the 
assertion  that,  since  1870,  the  Jews  have  believed  Germany 
to  be  the  rising  Power  and  have  consequently  striven  to 
"  back  the  winner " — no  observer  who  has  had  dealings 
with  the  Jews  of  Austria  will  doubt  that  some  impulse  more 
subtle  than  the  expectation  of  immediate  advantage  drives 
them  to  pose  as  Germans  and  to  associate  themselves  with 
Germanism  rather  than  with  any  non-German  tendency.  The 
Jews  who  have  deliberately  associated  themselves  with  and 
sought  to  become  assimilated  by  Slav  races  like  the  Czechs, 
the  Serbo-Croatians,  the  Slovenes,  the  Slovaks,  or  by  the 
Rumanes  of  Hungary,  are  exceedingly  few  in  number.  The 


THE  PEOPLE  173 

case  of  the  Hungarian  Jews — who  appear  to  have  accepted 
Magyarization — is  peculiar,  and  the  sincerity  of  their  attach- 
ment to  Magyarism  has  yet  to  be  proved.  The  bulk  of  the 
Galician  and  Hungarian  Jews  who  migrate  to  Vienna  and 
other  parts  of  Austria  claim  German  "  nationality."  When 
authentic  Germans  disown  them,  these  Jews  reply  that  they 
"  feel  like  Germans,"  an  assertion  which  authentic  Germans 
passionately  deny.  Controversy  upon  the  question  whether 
a  Jew  can  "  feel  like  "  a  German  has  given  rise  to  tautological 
designations  such  as  that  of  "  Germanic  Germans,"  used  not 
long  since  by  Dr.  Sylvester,  the  President  of  the  Austrian 
Chamber — a  designation  comprehensible  only  as  establishing 
a  distinction  between  Germanic  and  Semitic  Germans.  So 
large  a  part  does  this  distinction  play  in  Austrian-German 
politics  that  a  leading  Jewish  journalist  has  declared,  bitterly 
but  truthfully,  that  antisemitism  forms  the  only  bond 
between  the  various  sections  of  the  Austrian -German 
"  National "  party.  Pan-Germanism,  in  Austria  at  least,  has 
always  had  an  anti-Jewish  tendency.  It  is  related  of  Herr 
Schoenerer,  the  founder  and  former  leader  of  the  Austrian 
Pan-German  party,  that  after  the  original  party  programme 
had  been  drafted  for  endorsement  by  a  congress  at  Linz,  a 
clause  was  added  to  it  excluding  from  membership  all 
Germans  of  non-Aryan  descent.  The  historian,  Dr.  Friedjung, 
who  had  drawn  up  the  programme,  and  whose  Pan-German 
leanings  were  strong,  was  thus,  as  a  full-blooded  Jew,  ex- 
cluded from  the  party  he  had  helped  to  form.  It  is  an 
irony  of  fate  that  while  these  exclusive  tendencies  prevail 
among  the  "  Germanic  "  German  "  Liberals,"  the  whole 
"  Liberal,"  i.e.  non-Clerical,  press  of  Austria  should  be  in 
Jewish  hands  ;  and  that  the  home  policy  of  the  German 
"  National  "  parties  in  Austria  should  be  largely  determined 
by  the  influence  of  the  Germans  of  Prague,  most  of  whom 
are  Jews.  The  political  interests  of  the  veritable  Germans 
in  other  parts  of  Austria — those  of  Styria,  Carinthia,  Upper  and 
Lower  Austria,  the  Salzkammergut,  Tyrol,  and  Vorarlberg — 
have  long  been  subordinated  to  the  exigencies  of  the  struggle 


174  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

between  Czechs  and  Germans  of  Bohemia,  in  which  the 
Jewish-German  press  of  Prague  and  its  ally,  the  Jewish- 
German  Neue  Freie  Presse  of  Vienna,  have  been  important 
if  not  determining  factors.  It  sounded  therefore  like  black 
ingratitude  when  a  Viennese  Jewish  review  recently  warned 
the  Jews  of  Prague  that  the  time  had  come  to  "  neutralize  " 
themselves  in  the  view  of  the  then  prevailing  tendency  of 
Czechs  and  Germans  in  Bohemia  to  come  to  an  understand- 
ing. "  As  long  as  the  Czech-German  quarrel  lasted,"  wrote 
this  review,1  "  the  Jews  were  often  protected  by  the  circum- 
stance that  the  decision  lay  in  their  hands.  Therefore  neither 
side  ventured  to  do  them  much  harm.  But  when  the  two 
Bohemian  races  have  defined  their  spheres  of  influence,  they 
will  have  no  regard  for  the  Jews  and  will  pay  them  out  for 
the  way  they  have  behaved  in  '  national '  questions  (i.e.  in 
the  Czech-German  race  struggle).  Hitherto  the  Jews  of 
Bohemia  have  pursued  a  purely  idealist  policy  corresponding 
to  their  German  culture,  and  have  followed  the  Germans 
unconditionally — the  worst  possible  tactics,  judging  by 
results.  The  Czechs,  originally  tolerant,  propagated  anti- 
semitism,  while  the  conceited  Germans  did  not  give  up 
their  antisemitism  although  the  Jews  were  often  more 
Pan-German  than  Schoenerer  and  followed  a  flag  that 
was  often  a  battle-standard  against  the  Jews  themselves. 
Henceforth  the  Jews  must  pursue  none  but  a  Jewish  policy, 
and  must  so  determine  their  conduct  as  to  inflict  damage 
upon  economic  and  moral  antisemitism." 

Whether  ungrateful  or  not,  this  frank  declaration  must 
be  regarded  as  a  healthy  sign.  The  Jewish  "danger,"  if 
danger  it  be,  does  not  lie  in  the  proclamation  and  defence 
of  a  specifically  Jewish  standpoint  but  in  the  dissimulation 
of  Jewish  ideas  and  interests  under  a  non-Jewish  cloak. 
The  Jews  qua  Jews  are  as  entitled  as  any  other  people  in 
the  Austro- Hungarian  Monarchy  or  in  the  world,  to  full 
consideration  of  their  rights  and  interests,  but  they  cannot 

1  Osterreichische  Wochcnschrift  (Central  Organ  for  Jewish  Interests),  August 
1912. 


THE  PEOPLE  175 

enjoy  esteem  as  long  as  they  attempt  to  out-German  the 
Germans  in  Pan-Germanism  or  to  out-Magyar  the  Magyars 
in  oppression  of  the  non-Magyar  races  of  Hungary.  There  is 
something  peculiarly  repugnant  in  Jewish  chauvinism  on  behalf 
of  a  dominant  race.  The  writer  will  never  forget  the  disagree- 
able impression  made  upon  him  some  years  ago  by  a  Jewish 
professor  of  Social  Science  in  Hungary,  who  claimed  that 
the  Slovaks  of  North- West  Hungary  ought  to  be  oppressed, 
and  if  necessary  exterminated,  because  they  were  refractory 
to  Magyarization.  Healthier  ideas  are  beginning  to  prevail 
among  the  younger  generation  of  Jews  in  Austria- Hungary, 
thanks  largely  to  the  influence  of  Zionist  propaganda.  Into 
the  question  of  territorial  Zionism  it  is  not  necessary  now 
to  enter,1  though  the  overcrowding  of  Galicia,  of  the  Jewish 
zone  in  Russia  and  of  parts  of  Rumania,  render  it,  in  view 
of  the  restriction  of  emigration,2  a  question  of  no  little 
importance ;  but  moral  Zionism,  or,  rather,  the  ethical  and 
psychological  effect  of  the  Zionist  ideal,  demand  attention. 
When  Theodor  Herzl,  the  literary  editor  of  the  Neue  Freie 
Presse,  started  the  Zionist  movement,  the  younger  intellectual 
Jews  of  Austria-Hungary  were  veritably  at  the  parting  of 
the  ways.  Contact  with  the  outer  world  had  deprived  many 
of  them  of  the  faith  of  their  fathers,  and  had  divested 
their  minds  of  the  grosser  Talmudic  wrappings  without 
providing  other  substitute  than  a  scepticism  which  tended 
constantly  to  become  more  cynical.  Many  cultured  Jewish 
youths  sought  to  discard  their  very  nature  and  to  identify 
themselves  completely  with  Germanism,  accepting  German 
political  and  ethical  ideals  and  trying  honestly  to  "  feel  like  " 
Germans.  One  such  committed  suicide  on  discovering,  after 
years  of  endeavour,  that  a  Jew  can  no  more  become  a 
Teuton  than  an  Ethiopian  can  change  his  skin  or  a  leopard 
its  spots.  To  minds  like  these  Zionism  came  with  the 
force  of  an  evangel.  To  be  a  Jew  and  to  be  proud  of 

1  Zionism  in  its  territorial  aspects  is  now  an  integral,  if  not  indeed  the  most 
significant  part  of  the  Near  Eastern  Question,  at  least  as  regards  the  future  of 
the  Ottoman  Empire.  2  Cf.  p.  149. 


176  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

it ;  to  glory  in  the  power  and  pertinacity  of  the  race,  its 
traditions,  its  triumphs,  its  sufferings,  its  resistance  to  per- 
secution ;  to  look  the  world  frankly  in  the  face,  and  to  enjoy 
the  luxury  of  moral  and  intellectual  honesty  ;  to  feel  pride 
in  belonging  to  the  people  that  gave  Christendom  its 
Divinities,  that  taught  half  the  world  monotheism,  whose 
ideas  have  permeated  civilization  as  never  the  ideas  of  a 
race  before  it,  whose  genius  fashioned  the  whole  mechanism 
of  modern  commerce  and  whose  artists,  actors,  singers,  and 
writers  have  filled  a  larger  place  in  the  cultured  universe 
than  those  of  any  other  people  :  this,  or  something  like  this, 
was  the  train  of  thought  fired  in  youthful  Jewish  minds  by 
the  Zionist  spark.  Its  effect  upon  the  Jewish  students  of 
Austrian  Universities  was  immediate  and  striking.  Until 
then  they  had  been  despised  and  often  ill-treated.  They 
had  wormed  their  way  into  appointments  and  into  the  free 
professions  by  dint  of  pliancy,  mock  humility,  mental  acute- 
ness  and  clandestine  protection.  If  struck  or  spat  upon 
by  "  Aryan "  students,  they  rarely  ventured  to  return  the 
blow  or  the  insult.  But  Zionism  gave  them  courage.  They 
formed  associations  and  learned  athletic  drill  and  fencing. 
Insult  was  requited  with  insult,  and  presently  the  best  fencers 
of  the  fighting  German  corps  found  that  Zionist  students 
could  gash  cheeks  quite  as  effectually  as  any  Teuton  and  that 
the  Jews  were  in  a  fair  way  to  become  the  best  swordsmen 
of  the  University.  To-day  the  purple  cap  of  the  Zionist  is 
as  respected  as  that  of  any  academical  association. 

This  moral  influence  of  Zionism  is  not  confined  to 
University  students.  It  is  quite  as  noticeable  among  the 
mass  of  the  younger  Jews  outside,  who  also  find  in  it  a 
reason  to  raise  their  heads  and,  taking  their  stand  upon 
their  past,  to  gaze  straightforwardly  into  the  future.  To 
attend  a  Zionist  gathering  in  the  Leopoldstadt,  the  Jewish 
quarter  of  Vienna,  is  an  enlightening  experience  to  those 
who  have  seen  the  filth  and  misery  of  the  Ghettos  where 
Jew  exploits  Jew  and  where  contempt  of  the  Gentile  does 
duty  for  self-respect.  Hundreds,  sometimes  thousands  of 


THE  PEOPLE  177 

well-washed  youths  and  trim  maidens,  with  a  large  sprinkling 
of  Jewish  working-men,  may  be  seen  listening  enraptured  to 
readings  from  the  Scriptures.  The  territorial  ideal,  that  is 
to  say,  the  foundation  of  a  Jewish  state  in  Palestine  or 
elsewhere,  doubtless  appeals  to  the  bulk  of  the  Zionists,  but 
the  main  effect  of  the  ideal  is  to  give  them  self-confidence 
and  the  courage  of  their  convictions.  It  is  too  much  to 
expect  that  Zionism  will  suddenly  endow  all  Jews  with 
courage,  tact  and  uprightness  ;  but  it  is  much  that  it  should 
already  have  provided  an  intellectual  and  moral  elite  among 
them  with  an  ideal  capable  of  arousing  faith  and  enthusiasm. 

Many  orthodox  and  semi-orthodox  Jews  nevertheless 
regard  Zionism  with  grave  misgivings  and  scarcely  disguised 
hostility.  They  seem  to  fear  that,  by  coming  out  into  the  open, 
the  Zionists  may  be  playing  into  the  enemy's  hands.  Quite 
recently  (March  29,  1913)  an  influential  German  Jewish 
association,  the  "  Central  Society  of  German  Citizens  of 
Jewish  Faith,"  adopted  a  strongly  anti-Zionist  resolution. 
"  The  Society,"  it  ran,  "  demands  of  its  members  not  only 
the  fulfilment  of  their  duties  as  citizens  but  German  feelings 
and  the  exercise  of  those  feelings  in  civil  life "  ;  and  con- 
tinued :  "  On  the  soil  of  the  German  Fatherland  we  wish,  as 
Germans,  to  co-operate  in  German  civilization  and  to  remain 
true  to  a  partnership  that  has  been  hallowed  by  religion  and 
history.  In  so  far  as  the  Zionist  endeavours  to  provide  an 
assured  home  for  the  Jews  of  the  East  who  are  deprived  of 
their  rights,  or  to  increase  the  pride  of  Jews  in  their  history 
and  religion,  he  is  welcome  to  us  as  a  member ;  but  we 
must  sever  ourselves  from  the  Zionist  who  denies  German 
National  (racial)  sentiments,  feels  himself  to  be  a  guest 
among  a  strange  people,  and  only  feels  nationally  (racially) 
as  a  Jew."  * 

This  resolution  is  a  precise  definition  of  the  semi- 
assimilationist  standpoint  It  is  directed  principally  against 
the  "  Young  Jewish  "  movement  in  Germany,  whose  literary 
leaders  have  adopted  the  device  "  Truth  for  Truth's  sake  " 

1  Cf.  Neue  Freie  Presse,  March  31,  1913. 

N 


i/8  THE   HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

and  have,  like  Dr.  Fromer,  frankly  proclaimed  facts  which 
the  Assimilationists  and  semi-Assimilationists  have  for 
generations  striven  to  hide.  It  admits  the  potential  uses 
of  Zionism  but  condemns  its  guiding  idea.  Doubtless 
Zionism,  like  every  great  movement,  has  its  questionable 
sides.  Many  German  Jews,  filled  with  the  assimilationist 
spirit,  perceive  that  if  cunningly  exploited,  the  movement 
can  be  turned  to  account  both  politically  and  financially. 
An  account  of  the  numerous  schemes  and  memoranda 
presented  to  the  Porte  during  the  Young  Turkish  era  and  of 
the  machinations  carried  on  in  the  name  of  "  Zionism  "  with 
the  support  of  Jewish  financial  and  pseudo-philanthropical 
organizations,  would  form  an  interesting  chapter  in  any 
veracious  history  of  modern  Jewry.  One  such  memorandum, 
emanating  from  a  Society  of  German  Jews,  pointed  out  that, 
"  if  Turkey  opens  her  doors  to  Jewish  immigration,  our  co- 
religionists, who  occupy  high  positions  (in  other  countries) 
will,  without  running  counter  to  the  duties  they  owe  to  their 
own  countries,  use  all  their  influence  for  the  political  and 
economic  advancement  of  the  Constitutional  Ottoman  Govern- 
ment. Important  advantages  will  thus  accrue  to  Turkey  as 
she  makes  her  way  straight  towards  Progress  and  Advance- 
ment, and  the  way  of  sure  and  influential  alliances  will  be 
opened  to  her.  The  Ottoman  Statesmen  who  undertake  the 
foundation  of  this  lasting  alliance  (between  the  Jews  and 
Turkey)  may  be  certain  of  obtaining  the  thanks  and  gratitude 
of  the  nation.  We  can  promise  and  assure  the  attachment 
and  friendship  of  the  Jews  towards  the  new  Jewish  emigra- 
tion centres  (Palestine,  Syria,  Mesopotamia,  and  Anatolia), 
and  towards  the  Government  which  protects  them,  for  we 
have  the  means  of  bringing  about  these  feelings.  As  we  are 
a  Society  composed  of  representatives  of  the  largest  Jewish 
Societies,  we  are  sure  that  our  recommendations  and  requests 
will  be  well  received  by  the  persons  and  circles  that  direct 
the  Jews." 

The   idea   on   which   this   memorandum    was    based    is 
diametrically  opposed  to  the  fundamental  idea  of  Zionism. 


THE  PEOPLE  179 

It  aimed  not  at  the  Constitution  of  a  Jewish  State — an  aim 
with  which  every  impartial  student  of  the  Jewish  question 
must  sympathize — but  at  the  Judaization  of  Turkey  in 
return  for  political  and  financial  advantages  that  would 
ostensibly  accrue  to  the  Ottoman  Empire  through  the 
favour  of  Jews  holding  influential  positions  in  all  countries. 
Of  all  forms  of  "  Zionism  "  this  would  be  surely  the  least 
desirable,  the  least  sincere,  and  the  most  productive  of  con- 
fusion. It  would  tend  to  perpetuate  the  equivocation  char- 
acteristic of  assimilationist  apologetics.  The  only  hope  of 
reaching  a  tolerable  solution  of  the  Jewish  question  is  in 
openness  and  honesty.  It  is  because  the  true  Zionist  ideal 
tends  in  this  direction  that  it  is  the  most  hopeful  sign  notice- 
able in  Jewry  for  centuries.  Against  it  the  Assimilationists 
urge  that,  were  a  Jewish  State  ever  to  be  constituted  and 
recognized,  Anti-Semites,  the  world  over,  would  arise  and  say 
to  the  Jews,  "  Now  you  have  a  land  of  your  own  ;  go  to  it ! " 
This  argument  is  disingenuous,  and  reveals  the  ambiguity 
of  the  position  hitherto  taken  up  by  assimilationist  Jewry. 
While  explaining  and  justifying  their  dispersion  by  their 
lack  of  any  country  of  their  own  and  while  maintaining 
belief  in  the  Messiah  who  shall  restore  the  Kingdom  of 
Israel,  nothing  is  farther  from  their  hearts  than  the  fulfil- 
ment of  the  prayer  "  Next  year  in  Jerusalem  !  "  Hence  the 
bitter  dislike  of  genuine  Zionism  noticeable  among  prosperous 
Assimilationists  and  "  Dispersionists,"  whose  ideal  seems  to 
be  the  maintenance  of  Jewish  international  influence  as  a 
veritable  imperium  in  imperiis.  Dissimulation  of  their  real 
objects  has  become  to  them  a  second  nature,  and  they 
deplore  and  tenaciously  combat  every  tendency  to  place  the 
Jewish  question  frankly  on  its  merits  before  the  world.  In 
reality  there  is  no  danger  whatever  that  the  eventual  estab- 
lishment of  a  Jewish  State  would  lead  to  the  expulsion  of 
Jews  from  other  countries,  least  of  all  to  the  expulsion  of 
the  well-to-do  Jewish  communities  in  Western  Europe  and 
America.  The  establishment  of  the  Hellenic  Kingdom  has 
not  led  to  the  expulsion  of  Greek  communities  from  France, 


i8o  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

England,  and  the  United  States.  It  is  nevertheless  probable 
that  the  creation  of  a  Jewish  State  would,  sooner  or  later, 
affect  the  position  of  the  Jews  throughout  the  world.  They 
would  be  obliged  eventually  to  choose  between  acceptance  of 
Jewish  citizenship  and  absolute  identification  with  the  coun- 
tries of  their  adoption.  The  bond  between  German,  English, 
French,  and  American  Jews  would  tend  to  be  reduced  to  a 
bond  merely  religious  or  denominational.  The  issues  would 
be  clarified  and  simplified.  Whether  the  establishment  of  a 
Jewish  State  in  Palestine  or  elsewhere  will  ever  be  feasible 
is  a  question  of  the  future.  But  in  the  meantime,  Zionists 
are  working  to  create  conditions  that  shall  facilitate  its  realiza- 
tion ;  Zionist  colonies  have  been  and  are  being  established 
in  Palestine,  Hebrew  is  again  being  taught  and  spoken  in 
place  of  the  Yiddish  jargon,  and  the  Agrarian  law  of  Moses 
with  its  healthy  provision  that  a  family  has  no  right  per- 
manently to  possess  what  it  cannot  use  or  cultivate,  is  being 
brought  into  application.  The  proud  boast  made  some  time 
ago  by  the  German  Zionist,  Dr.  Franz  Oppenheimer,  to  a 
Zionist  assembly  in  Vienna — that  "  after  having  taught  the 
world  monotheism,  the  Jews  will,  by  the  Light  of  the  Mosaic 
Law,  presently  teach  it  a  solution  for  the  problems  of 
property  and  misery" — may  be  a  long  way  from  realiza- 
tion ;  but  it  goes  in  a  sense  to  the  root  of  the  Jewish 
question  in  its  capitalistic  and  propertied  form.  The  Jewish 
question  can  only  be  solved  by  Jews,  and  it  may  well  be 
that  Moses,  who  knew  them  and  their  tendencies,  laid  down 
the  principles  that  will  save  them  from  themselves.  Non- 
Jews  can  only  watch  the  process  with  sympathy  proportionate 
to  their  acquaintance  with  the  conditions  of  the  problem — 
active  sympathy  in  welcoming  healthy  symptoms,  negative 
sympathy  in  striving  to  resist  tendencies  that  are  unwhole- 
some ;  but,  above  all,  by  seeking  to  acquire  knowledge  of 
Jewry,  by  having  the  courage  to  call  things  by  their  names, 
by  refusing  to  be  deluded  into  a  sentimentally  uncritical 
"  philosemitic "  attitude,  and  by  rejecting  mere  uncritical 
antisemitic  clamour.  The  Jewish  problem  is  one  of  the 


THE  PEOPLE  181 

great  problems  of  the  world,  and  no  man,  be  he  a  writer, 
politician  or  diplomatist,  can  be  considered  mature  until  he 
has  striven  to  face  it  squarely  on  its  merits. 


THE  PRESS  AND  THE  PUBLIC 

"  Every  country  has  the  Jews  it  deserves,"  runs  a 
hackneyed  saying  ;  and  every  country,  it  is  often  added, 
has  the  press  it  deserves.  Such  sayings  are,  in  reality, 
question-begging  truisms  that  go  but  a  little  way  to  elucidate 
the  problems  they  airily  dispose  of.  A  "  country  "  or,  rather, 
the  public  of  a  country  is  not  an  undifferentiated  medium 
of  constant  quality  that  invariably  gives,  as  in  a  testing 
tube,  the  same  "  reactions  "  when  exposed  to  the  influence 
of  specified  "  agents."  Race-character,  conditions  of  develop- 
ment, traditions,  and  the  strength  of  constituted  authorities 
all  play  a  part  in  determining  the  "  reaction  "  of  the  public 
under  the  influence  of  "  agents  "  like  the  Jews  and  the  press. 
When,  as  in  the  Hapsburg  Monarchy,  the  press  is  almost 
entirely  Jewish,  the  problem  is  at  once  simplified  and  com- 
plicated, for  the  press  which,  in  other  hands,  might  assist 
the  public  to  "  have  the  Jews  it  deserves,"  deprives  the  Jews 
themselves  of  the  educational  influence  of  fair  criticism  and 
removes  from  their  path  those  minor  checks  and  warnings 
that  might  otherwise  induce  them  to  be  wise  in  time  and 
to  practise  the,  for  them,  supremely  difficult  virtue  of  self- 
restraint  and  moderation.  Centuries  of  segregation  and — 
as  regards  the  mass — of  pauperism,  working  upon  non- 
European  temperaments,  have  prevented  the  Jews  from 
knowing  instinctively  how  much  Jewish  influence  a  non- 
Jewish  public  will  tolerate.  They  unconsciously  violate 
the  unexpressed  canons  of  non-Jewish  taste,  and  are  filled 
with  amazement  and  a  sense  of  injustice  when  an  outburst 
of  violent  antisemitism  in  word  or  deed  reminds  them  too 
pertinently  that  the  days  of  persecution  may  not  be  past. 
They  then  tend  to  confound  effect  with  cause  and  to 
attribute  to  antisemitic  agitation  the  outburst  which  could 


1 82  THE  HAPSBURG   MONARCHY 

not  have  occurred  had  not  the  agitators  found  a  mass  of 
explosive  material  ready  to  hand.  Most  Austrian  Jews  still 
attribute  the  Christian  Social  antisemitic  movement  to  the 
agitation  of  Lueger  and  his  associates,  ignoring  the  fact  that 
Lueger  only  gave  shape  and  political  consistency  to  a  power- 
ful current  of  feeling  due  partly  to  public  resentment  of 
Jewish  display  of  newly-gotten  wealth  and  partly  to  a 
comprehensible  though  not  wholly  justifiable  tendency  to 
make  of  the  Jews  scapegoats  for  the  losses  of  the  community 
in  the  financial  disasters  of  1873.  Some  clearer-sighted  Jews 
attribute,  albeit  with  conscious  exaggeration,  the  growth  of 
political  antisemitism  in  Austria  to  detestation  of  the  Neue 
Freie  Presse,  a  journal  that  embodies  in  concentrated  form 
and,  at  times,  with  demonic  force,  the  least  laudable  char- 
acteristics of  Austro-German  Jewry.  The  simple  truth  is 
that  in  the  Hapsburg  Monarchy,  as  in  most  non-Oriental 
countries,  the  Jews  are  only  half-acclimatized  and  less  than 
half-assimilated  ;  and  that,  in  these  circumstances,  it  should 
be  their  first  care  to  reduce  to  a  minimum  the  friction  and 
jarring  that  are  inevitable  when  elements  ethnically  diverse 
inhabit  one  politico-social  body.  But  the  more  circumspect 
and  enlightened  Jews  are  deterred,  by  fear  of  playing  into 
the  enemy's  hands,  from  public  criticism  or  rebuke  of  their 
co-religionists'  indiscretions.  Consequently  such  restraining 
influence  as  is  publicly  exercised  remains  a  monopoly  of 
professional  Anti-Semites  and  of  Clerical  demagogues. 

Moreover,  in  the  Hapsburg  Monarchy  and  particularly 
in  Vienna,  the  press  consists  less  of  "organs  of  public 
opinion  "  than  of  instruments  working  to  manufacture  public 
opinion,  primarily  in  accordance  with  the  wishes  of  the  State 
authorities  and,  secondarily,  in  the  interests  of  financial  and 
economic  corporations.  As  has  been  said,  the  Jews  control 
practically  the  whole  press.  They  control  also  the  financial 
and  economic  corporations.  They  have,  too,  a  footing  in 
those  minor  offices  of  State  from  which  the  press  is  inspired 
and  they  frequently  hold  influential  posts  among  the  police 
and  semi-judicial  functionaries  by  whom  the  press  is  exter- 


THE  PEOPLE  183 

nally  "  kept  in  order."     Thus  the  dual  supervision  exercised 
on  the  one  hand  by  the  Press-Bureaux  of  the  various  State 
Departments,  and,  on  the  other,  by  the  State  Attorneys  or 
public  prosecutors  who  are  entitled  to  confiscate  offending 
journals,  is  sometimes  strangely  circumscribed.    It  is  true  that 
the  history  of  the  Austrian  press  is  largely  the  history  of  a 
struggle  to  widen  the  field  of  activity  that  lies  between  the 
extremes  of  official  inspiration  and  official  confiscation.     But, 
in  practice,  the  struggle  has  resulted  in  a  compromise  that 
allows  the  press  great  liberty,  and  even  licence,  in  certain 
directions  and,  in  others,  permits  the  State  to  retain,  directly 
and  indirectly,  the  control  ostensibly  removed  when  preventive 
censorship  was  abolished.     A  symbol  of  the  status  of  Austrian 
newspapers  may  perhaps  be  descried  in  the  fact  that,  save  to 
subscribers,  they  are  still  retailed  to  the  public,  like  cigars, 
matches,  postage   stamps  and  lottery  tickets,  in  the  State 
tobacco   shops  and   are   not   allowed  to  be   sold  by  news- 
vendors  or  by  newsboys  in  the  streets.     Confiscation  of  the 
whole   issue   of  any  journal  is  thus   a   comparatively  easy 
matter,  inasmuch  as  the  police  authorities  are  able  within  a 
few  minutes   to   put   their  hands   upon    nearly  every  copy 
printed.     In  extreme  cases  the  Government  can  forbid  the 
sale  of  an  opposition  journal  in  the  tobacco  shops — a  punitive 
measure  that  nearly  killed  one  flourishing  gazette  some  years 
ago.     State  inspiration  and  control  naturally  apply  chiefly  to 
expressions  of  opinion  and  items  of  information  politically 
interesting  to  the  authorities.      It  matters  little  to  the  State 
if  the  letterpress  and  advertisement  columns  of  a  journal  or 
periodical  tend  to  encourage  vice  and  immorality.     The  old 
principle  that,  when  the  public  is  "  amusing  itself,"  it  is  likely 
to  refrain  from  meddling  in  the  public  affairs  which  are  the 
concern  of  the  Government,  is  still  held  in  honour.     The 
Austrian  press,  to  do  it  justice,  wears  its  fetters  with  a  good 
grace  and  might  even,  in  the  American  phrase,  "  feel  lonely 
without   them."     It  knows  that   there  are  paths  that  lead 
under,  through  and   round   the   most  formidable  obstacles, 
and  that,  in  an  easy-going  country,  no  tree  ever  grows  into 


1 84  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

the  sky  and  no  food  is  eaten  at  cooking  temperature.  In 
the  relations,  open  and  surreptitious,  between  the  press 
and  the  authorities,  the  Jews  naturally  find  scope  for  their 
peculiar  adaptability  and  power  of  combination — the  more  so 
in  that  some  important  groups  of  newspapers  are  affiliated 
to  industrial  and  financial  concerns  which  the  State  has  every 
interest  not  to  estrange.  There  are  exceptions,  apparent  or 
real,  to  this  as  to  every  rule  but,  as  will  appear  from  a  brief 
analysis  of  the  position  and  characteristics  of  the  leading 
Viennese  journals,  the  principle  holds  good  that  the  Austrian 
press  is  a  semi-private,  semi-public  institution,  worked  chiefly 
by  Jews  under  a  dual  control  exercised  through  official  press 
bureaux  and  the  public  prosecutor. 

No  aspect  of  the  Jewish  question,  not  even  the  Jewish 
control  of  money-power,  has  so  immediate  an  interest  for 
the  Gentile  world  as  that  of  Jewish  influence  over  the  public 
press.  In  all  countries,  except  perhaps  in  Russia,  this  influence 
is  strong,  but  in  no  country  is  it  stronger  than  in  Austria- 
Hungary.  Precise  figures  are  hard  to  obtain,  but  estimates 
by  competent  judges  place  the  proportion  of  Jewish  journalists 
on  the  Magyar  press  of  Budapest  at  90  per  cent,  and  on  the 
press  of  Vienna  at  75  per  cent  The  relatively  high  per- 
centage of  Jews  in  the  population  of  Lower  Austria  and  Vienna 
(5.23  per  cent)  is  insufficient  to  account  for  this  predomi- 
nance, nor  can  the  higher  percentage  of  Jews  in  Hungary 
adequately  explain  what  is  practically  a  Jewish  monopoly 
of  journalism.  The  "  intellectualism  "  and  quick-wittedness 
of  the  Jew,  his  versatility  and  power  of  adaptation  to  circum- 
stances, evidently  fit  him  in  especial  degree  to  discharge 
functions  which  are  practically  those  of  a  middleman  between 
the  public  and  matters  of  public  interest.  Newspaper  enter- 
prise is,  moreover,  a  business,  albeit  a  business  sui  generis, 
and  is  governed  largely  by  the  considerations  that  apply  to 
all  commercial  undertakings.  If  a  newspaper  be  regarded  as 
a  mere  commodity,  it  is  comprehensible  that  the  Jews  should 
possess  the  same  advantages  in  manufacturing  and  selling 
it  as  in  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  other  wares.  Besides, 


THE  PEOPLE  185 

the  Jews  have  had  for  centuries  unrivalled  experience  in  the 
collection  and  dissemination  of  news.  Their  very  dispersion 
has  given  them  an  advantage  by  which  they  have  been  quick 
to  profit.  They  were  the  first  to  understand  the  value  of 
constant  intercommunication,  just  as,  so  far  as  records  go, 
they  were  the  first  systematically  to  use  the  press  for 
commercial  advertising.  The  development  of  the  electric 
telegraph  was  furthered  and  exploited  by  them.  Jews 
founded  the  chief  European  telegraph  agencies  both  for  the 
purpose  of  organizing  and  of  controlling  the  main  supply  of 
international  information.  For  legitimate  business  and  for 
speculation  such  control  is  alike  essential.  Similarly  the 
Jews,  after  their  emancipation,  understood  the  importance  of 
using  the  press  to  propagate  the  liberal  views  to  which  they 
owed  the  removal  of  disabilities,  and  to  combat  reactionary 
or  anti-Jewish  tendencies.  These  aspects  of  Jewish  influence 
in  the  press  are  unexceptionable  in  so  far  as  they  are  frankly 
recognized.  But  when  the  influence  is  clandestine  or  dis- 
guised it  becomes  questionable.  Save  from  the  newsvendor's 
standpoint,  a  newspaper  cannot  be  regarded  as  a  mere  com- 
modity, even  though  it  confine  itself  to  matter-of-fact  state- 
ments or  to  the  publication  of  telegrams.  The  formulation 
of  the  statement  and  the  choice  of  the  telegram  may  go  far 
to  produce  the  impression  desired.  When  comment  is  added 
the  influence  of  the  newspaper  is  more  patent  and  the  issue 
more  clearly  raised.  Freedom  of  the  press  and  the  right  to 
publish  fair  comment  are  justly  considered  indispensable  to 
political  liberty,  but  they  should  evidently  connote  a  sense  of 
journalistic  responsibility  equal,  at  lowest,  to  the  responsi- 
bility felt  by  conscientious  tradesmen  towards  their  customers. 
There  is  such  a  thing  as  the  freedom  of  the  public  and  its 
right  not  to  be  exposed  to  misleading  statements  of  fact  or 
insidious  comment.  The  objection  that  the  public  is  not 
obliged  to  read  newspapers  is  not  valid.  Nowadays  the 
reading  of  newspapers  is  as  inevitable  as  the  use  of  railways 
or  other  mechanical  means  of  locomotion.  The  newspaper 
press  needs  therefore  to  be  controlled  by  a  high  sense  of  duty 


1 86  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

towards  the  public,  a  sense  which  ought  not  to  be  inferior 
to  that  of  a  university  professor  towards  his  students  or  of 
a  preacher  towards  his  congregation.  Otherwise  restrictive 
measures  and  the  application  to  journalism  of  the  principle 
that  inspired  the  Merchandise  Marks  Act  may  become  neces- 
sary in  the  public  interest.  In  England,  as  in  some  other 
countries,  the  interest  of  individuals  is  protected,  perhaps  to 
excess,  by  the  law  of  libel,  but  the  public  in  general  has  no 
protection  against  the  dissemination  of  false  or  tainted  news 
and  the  suppression  of  facts  necessary  for  the  formation  of 
healthy  public  opinion.  It  may  be  maintained  that,  as  the 
field  of  journalistic  competition  is  free,  those  who  dislike 
views  and  tendencies  openly  or  surreptitiously  represented 
in  the  press  are  at  liberty  to  set  up  rival  journals  and  combat 
the  influences  they  deplore  ;  and  that  the  public  mind  grows 
more  robust  by  learning  to  pick  and  choose  for  itself.  Such 
contentions  are  specious.  The  public  mind  is  no  more  likely 
to  grow  robust  by  picking  and  choosing  between  a  variety 
of  journals  representing  clandestine  tendencies  or  simply 
peppering  the  public  brain  with  items  of  disjointed  "  newsy  " 
intelligence,  than  schoolboys  would  be  likely  to  develop  a 
taste  for  scholarship  were  they  obliged  to  limit  their  choice 
of  reading  to  novels  with  a  purpose  and  penny  dreadfuls.  In 
practice,  the  freedom  of  journalistic  competition  is  limited 
by  the  immense  difficulty  of  establishing  any  new  journal  of 
sufficient  dimensions  to  make  it  a  public  force.  In  modern 
journalism,  even  more  than  in  other  spheres  of  enterprise, 
possession  is  nine-tenths  of  the  law.  Apart  from  the  capital, 
labour,  energy  and  special  talent  required  to  create  a  news- 
paper and  to  give  it  a  hold  on  the  public,  it  is  no  easy 
matter  to  loosen  the  grip  of  an  established  journal  even 
upon  readers  who  do  not  entirely  agree  with  its  opinions. 
In  no  European  country  is  this  fact  more  strikingly  demon- 
strated than  in  Austria.  Detestation  of  the  leading  Austrian 
journal,  the  Neue  Freie  Presse,  is  general,  yet  it  has  an 
influence  probably  unsurpassed  by  that  of  any  journal  of 
equal  circulation  in  the  world.  To  be  attacked  by  the  Neue 


THE  PEOPLE  187 

Freie  Presse  is  a  certificate  of  political  uprightness,  but  poli- 
ticians and  officials  nevertheless  fear  it.  It  is  owned,  edited 
and  written  by  Jews  and  appeals  in  the  first  instance  to  a 
distinctly  Jewish  community  of  readers,  many  of  whom,  like 
the  bulk  of  its  non-Jewish  readers,  suspect  it  of  aiming  con- 
stantly at  influencing  the  Stock  Exchange  and  profess  disgust 
at  its  chronic  unfairness,  blatant  self-sufficiency  and  per- 
sistent advocacy  of  its  peculiar  conception  of  Jewish  interests. 
But  one  and  all  read  it  from  day  to  day,  or,  rather,  twice  a 
day,  unconsciously  adopt  its  standpoint  and  allow  it  to  colour 
their  views  of  public  affairs.  The  greater  part  of  what  does 
duty  for  "  Austrian  opinion  "  is  dictated  or  suggested  to  the 
public  by  the  editor-proprietor  of  the  Neue  Freie  Presse,  of 
whom  it  has  jokingly  but,  in  a  sense,  not  untruthfully  been 
said  that  "  next  to  him  the  Emperor  is  the  most  important 
man  in  the  country." 

It  is  a  debatable  point  whether  the  influence  of  journals 
like  the  Neue  Freie  Presse  and  of  similar  organs  in  Germany, 
would  be  affected  were  they  obliged  to  print  as  a  sub-title, 
"  Organ  for  the  propagation  of  German-Jewish  ideas."  The 
public  would  gain  by  knowing  what  it  was  reading.  The 
journals  themselves  might  lose  no  more  than  Austrian  and 
German  manufacturers  lost  when  the  Merchandise  Marks 
Act  introduced  the  designations  "  made  in  Germany "  and 
"  made  in  Austria."  The  superior  talent  of  the  Jewish 
journalist  might  triumph  and  obtain  for  itself  frank  and 
open  recognition.  But  it  would  no  longer  masquerade  as 
"  German  "  or  "  Magyar."  The  editor-proprietor  of  the  Neue 
Freie  Presse  is  a  journalist  of  genius — a  tyrannical,  vindictive 
genius,  under  whom  his  staff  and  many  of  his  readers  groan, 
but  a  genius  nevertheless.  His  journal  would  be  read  for  its 
own  sake  but  would  no  longer  be  regarded  by  an  uninstructed 
world  as  the  chief  mouthpiece  of  Austrian-German  opinion. 
As  it  is,  no  suggestion  is  more  fiercely  resented  by  the  Neue 
Freie  Presse  and  its  editor  than  that  they  are  not  and  cannot 
be  "  German."  They  claim  to  "  feel  like  Germans  " — care- 
less of  the  scholastic  maxim,  Quidquid  recipitur  secundum 


i88  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

modum  recipientis  recipitur,  and  of  the  psychological  fact 
that  no  Teutonic  or  "  Germanic  German  "  contents  have  ever 
entered  a  Semitic-German  mind  without  undergoing  a  subtle 
change  of  quality  and  form.  But  as  long  as  the  Germans 
of  Austria,  who  are  antisemitic  almost  to  a  man,  are  content 
to  draw  their  notions  of  home  and  foreign  affairs  through  a 
Jewish  medium,  they  have  only  themselves  to  blame  if  current 
notions  of  public  affairs  bear  a  Semitic-German  stamp. 

Yet,  despite  defects,  the  Neue  Freie  Presse  possesses  one 
quality  that  distinguishes  it  advantageously  from  the  bulk 
of  its  "  Liberal "  contemporaries.  It  stands  for  an  idea,  and 
is  not  a  mere  contrivance  for  the  sale  ot  printed  paper. 
Herein  lies  its  force.  Whatever  may  be  said  against  it  and 
the  methods  of  its  editor,  no  one  has  ever  accused  him  of 
not  being  fanatically  devoted  to  the  propagation  of  Jewish- 
German  "  Liberal "  assimilationist  doctrine  and  of  not  being 
ready  to  sacrifice  journalistic  and  other  advantages  on  the 
altar  of  his  peculiar  politico-racial  faith.  It  is  this  that 
makes  his  paper  ring  true  when  the  cause  which  he  has  at 
heart  is  engaged,  and  it  is  this  that  groups  round  him  and 
it  all  those  commercial,  financial,  and  politico -religious 
elements  which  are  directly  or  indirectly  interested  in  the 
cause.  The  bulk  of  the  "  Liberal "  contemporaries  of  the 
Neue  Freie  Presse  serve  no  idea  save  that  of  selling  profit- 
ably as  much  as  possible  of  the  pressed-out  wood  pulp 
manufactured  by  the  various  paper  "  Mills "  to  which  they 
belong.  Of  these  newspapers  the  Neues  Wiener  Tagblatt  is 
the  highest  type.  It  and  its  satellites  are  controlled  by  the 
"  Styrian  "  Paper  Mill.  It  calls  itself  a  "  democratic  organ," 
and  is  largely  read  by  the  lower  middle  class.  Its  circula- 
tion is  probably  double,  if  not  treble,  that  of  the  Neue 
Freie  Presse  but  its  driving  power  is  incomparably  smaller. 
Edited  and  mainly,  though  not  exclusively,  written  by  Jews 
for  a  public  chiefly  Christian,  it  defends  Jewish  interests  by 
omission  rather  than  by  commission.  In  most  respects  it  is 
a  monument  of  easy-going,  trimming  profit-making.  Its 
pages — there  are  some  scores  of  them  on  week  days  and 


THE  PEOPLE  189 

sometimes  more  than  two  hundred  of  them  on  Sundays  and 
holidays — consist  of  oases  of  inoffensive  text  in  a  wilderness 
of  advertisements,  not  all  of  which  non  olent.  It  is  a 
flourishing  enterprise  and,  as  an  enterprise,  incorruptible. 
Though  constantly  at  the  disposal  of  the  authorities  for  the 
dissemination  of  semi-official  views,  it  has  never,  under  its 
present  editorship,  been  suspected  of  receiving,  as  a  journal, 
subsidies  from  official  sources.  It  is  a  mild  volunteer  in  the 
cause  of  semi-official  and  "German"  patriotism  and  is 
maintained  in  unstable  equilibrium  by  fear  of  giving  offence 
in  official  quarters  on  the  one  hand  and  of  losing  subscribers 
and,  consequently,  advertising  potentiality  on  the  other.  It 
gives  no  shocks  to  the  Stock  Exchange,  leaves  "  bulls  "  and 
"  bears  "  to  their  own  devices,  never  terrorizes  a  government, 
is  never  "  cranky,"  and  ministers  to  the  public  taste  for 
"  topical "  articles  and  sport.  The  more  insignificant  the 
paper  from  a  journalistic  standpoint,  the  more  the  Viennese 
appear  to  like  it,  buy  it  and  advertise  in  it.  If  a  newspaper 
be  a  mere  commodity  and  its  production  simply  a  commercial 
enterprise  governed  by  the  all-sufficient  object  of  making 
profit  for  wood-pulp  magnates,  the  Tagblatt  may  claim  to 
have  realized  approximately  the  ideal  of  what  a  newspaper 
should  be. 

Another  important  group  of  journals  is  owned  by 
another  paper-making  syndicate,  the  "  Elbe  Mill,"  which, 
in  its  turn,  is  controlled  by  powerful  industrial  and  financial 
interests.  These  journals  do  not  exist  only  for  the  pur- 
pose of  printing  and  selling  and  making  revenue  out  of 
"  Elbe  Mill "  paper.  Their  circulations  are  too  small.  They 
serve  nevertheless  other  important  purposes  in  various 
degrees.  They  are,  one  and  all,  at  the  disposal  of  the 
Government  and  particularly  of  the  Foreign  Office.  The 
well-known  Fremdenblatt,  the  official  Foreign  Office  organ,  the 
sensational  but  semi-official  Wiener  Allgemeine  Zeitung  and 
other  obscurer  news-sheets  are  among  them.  The  Fremden- 
blatt  which,  when  uninspired,  is  an  effective  soporific,  has  an 
insignificant  circulation  and  is  understood  to  be  maintained 


190  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

by  the  Government  for  official  purposes.  It  has  no  physi- 
ognomy of  its  own,  represents  no  idea  and  is  merely  the 
vessel  into  which  the  most  authorized  semi-official  views  are 
poured.  Like  the  majority  of  its  contemporaries,  it  is  edited 
and  written — except  in  the  case  of  positively  official  an- 
nouncements— by  Jews. 

Three  Viennese  journals  deserve  special  mention  as 
tending  to  introduce  an  atmosphere  of  greater  sincerity  into 
the  Austrian  press — the  Zeit,  the  Reichspost,  and  the  A  rbeiter 
Zeitung.  The  Zeit  was  established  as  a  daily  journal  some 
eleven  years  ago,  and  endowed  with  much  capital  for  the 
amiable  purpose  of  killing  or  crippling  the  Neue  Freie  Presse. 
In  this  purpose  it  has  not  yet  succeeded  ;  indeed,  the  Zeit  is 
reported  to  have  had  from  time  to  time  some  difficulty  in 
saving  its  own  life.  It  may  even  have  benefited  its  intended 
victim  by  squandering  what  an  eminent  Jewish  journalist 
has  called  "the  immense  patrimony  of  Austrian  hatred  of 
the  Neue  Freie  Presse"  The  story  of  the  Zeit  is  the  story 
of  praiseworthy  Jewish  talent  pitted  against  unscrupulous 
Jewish  genius — and  the  Jewish  public  is  too  shrewd  not  to 
side  with  genius.  Nevertheless  the  Zeit  has  rendered  and 
renders  real  service  to  the  Austrian  public.  It  is  more 
open-minded  and  less  pusillanimous  than  its  "  Liberal "  con- 
temporaries of  the  "  Mills."  Save  in  its  military  information, 
it  has  kept  itself  remarkably  free  from  the  semi-official  taint. 
Even  if  its  criticism  of  Government  action  be  sometimes 
carping,  it  has  the  courage  to  call  a  spade  a  spade  and 
roundly  to  state  facts  which  other  journals  are  fain,  for 
"  patriotic "  reasons — that  is  to  say,  for  fear  of  incurring 
official  odium — to  cover  up.  During  the  annexation  crisis 
of  1908—9  it  was  the  only  non-Socialist  organ  to  maintain 
an  independent  standpoint  in  regard  to  Count  Aehrenthal's 
policy  and  to  recommend  a  conciliatory  attitude  towards 
the  Southern  Slavs  ;  and  during  the  scandalous  Agram  High 
Treason  Trial  of  1907-8,  the  Friedjung  trial  and  its  sequel, 
it  defended  the  cause  of  political  honesty  and  fair  play.  Its 
attitude  during  the  more  recent  Balkan  crisis  has  been  frank 


THE  PEOPLE  191 

and  fearless  and  has  brought  the  journal  its  reward  in  a  not- 
able increase  of  prestige  and  circulation.  Though  sometimes 
exposed  to  "  influences,"  diplomatic  and  other,  that  ought  to 
play  no  part  in  self-respecting  journalism,  the  fact  stands 
to  its  credit  that  it  has  let  in  more  light  upon  the  dark 
places  of  Austro-Hungarian  public  affairs  than  any  other 
prominent  middle-class  newspaper  and  that  it  has  approxi- 
mated, at  times,  to  what  an  independent  organ  of  public 
opinion  might  and  should  be. 

The  Reichspost,  organ  of  the  Christian  Social  Party  and 
of  the  Piusverein — a  Clerical,  mainly  Jesuit,  Society  for  the 
development  of  a  Roman  Catholic,  non-Jewish  press — is  the 
only  considerable  daily  organ  of  pronouncedly  "  Christian  " 
tendencies.  It  was  founded  with  Catholic  funds,  is  written 
and  edited  by  militant  Catholics  and  is  clerical,  antisemitic, 
military,  chauvinistic  and  aggressive  in  tone.  Just  as  critical 
readers  of  the  Neue  Freie  Presse  are  apt  to  exclaim,  "A 
plague  on  all  scribbling  Hebrews,"  so  unprejudiced  readers 
of  the  Reichspost  are  often  tempted  to  aver  that  Jewish 
"  Liberalism  "  is  no  worse  than  Clerical  "  Christianity."  In 
such  Christianity,  charity  has  little  place.  When  Christianity 
is  claimed  as  a  party  monopoly,  made  subservient  to  party 
ends  and  used  as  a  flag  to  cover  the  merchandise  manu- 
factured by  Jesuitism  in  the  ostensible  interests  of  Church 
and  dynasty,  it  becomes  a  stumbling-block  to  the  simple- 
minded  and  not  to  the  simple-minded  alone.  At  its  best,  the 
propaganda  of  the  Reichspost  acts  as  a  counterpoise  to  Jewish 
"  Liberal "  and  Social  Democratic  doctrines  but  it  falls  lament- 
ably short  of  the  Christian  ideal  which  it  professes  to  serve. 

To  ti\QArbeiterZeitung,\hQ  chief  Social  Democratic  organ, 
reference  has  already  been  made.1  Its  influence  extends  far 
beyond  the  limits  of  party  and  is,  in  the  main,  healthy.  When- 
ever it  can  forget  Marxist  dogma  and  the  inverted  Clericalism 
of  its  party  creed,  it  speaks  the  language  of  good  sense 
touched  by  idealism.  Though  largely  written  by  Jews  and 
sometimes  curiously  subject  to  clandestine  Jewish  influences, 

1  Cf.  P.  135- 


I92  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

it  keeps  in  reserve  a  whip  for  financial  corruption  and, 
unlike  the  middle-class  Jewish  organs,  never  attempts  to 
whitewash  the  black  sheep  of  the  House  of  Israel. 

No  account  of  the  Viennese  press  would,  however,  be 
even  approximately  complete  without  some  mention  of  a 
biting,  stinging,  sometimes  scurrilous  periodical  pamphlet 
called  the  Packet,  which  keeps  a  vigilant  eye  upon  the  follies 
and  failings  of  daily  journalism  and  pillories  them  mercilessly. 
The  editor,  proprietor  and  staff  of  the  Packet  consist  of 
one  and  the  same  person,  Karl  Kraus,  a  Jewish  writer  of 
remarkable  talent.  The  daily  press  maintains  a  conspiracy 
of  silence  in  regard  to  his  very  existence  but  he  has  never- 
theless a  faithful  public  of  readers  who  enjoy  his  mordant 
satire  and  find  in  his  brilliant  style  relief  from  the  pom- 
posities and  bathos  of  Austrian  journalese.  Occasionally 
he  victimises  the  self-sufficient  omniscience  of  the  Neue 
Freie  Presse  by  perpetrating  at  its  expense  some  elaborate 
hoax.  Kraus  is  a  Viennese  product,  scarcely  intelligible  save 
in  relationship  to  the  Viennese  press  though  his  literary  style 
finds  recognition  beyond  the  frontiers  of  the  Monarchy.  He 
is  an  Ishmael,  courting  and  requiting  the  hostility  of  his 
contemporaries  but  rarely  allowing  their  shortcomings  to 
pass  unpunished.  In  one  respect  his  efforts  deserve  speci- 
ally honourable  mention.  He  has  encouraged  by  precept 
and  practice  the  tendency  of  modern  writers  of  German  to 
react  against  the  artificial  clumsiness  of  the  language  and  to 
prove  that  German  can  be  written  harmoniously.  Though 
Jewish  writers  of  German  abound,  few  of  them  write  it 
purely  and  well.  The  work  of  men  like  the  late  Theodor 
Herzl,  literary  editor  of  the  Neue  Freie  Presse  and  founder 
of  Zionism,  and  the  late  Leo  Veigelsberg,  assistant-editor  and 
chief  leader-writer  of  the  Pester  Lloyd,  was  of  a  high  order 
of  literary  merit.  Herzl,  a  lovable,  clean -hearted  man, 
intensely  proud  of  his  race,  brought  to  the  service  of  his 
pen  genuine  human  sympathy  and  a  fine  sense  of  humour. 
Veigelsberg,  less  widely  known  than  Herzl,  was  justly 
regarded  as  the  ablest  political  critic  in  the  German  press 


THE  PEOPLE  193 

of  any  country.  In  style  and  point  his  work  was  incom- 
parable. But,  broadly  speaki«g,  the  number  of  notable 
Jewish  writers  of  German  is  singularly  small  in  comparison 
with  their  numerical  preponderance.  Their  easy  knack  of 
turning  out  readable  "  copy  "  on  any  subject  seems  a  positive 
obstacle  to  the  attainment  of  excellence ;  and  their  very 
facility  of  ratiocination  appears  to  militate  against  the 
acquisition  of  literary  power.  Mere  lucidity  and  flawlessness 
of  logic  are  rarely  convincing.  Feeling,  even  imperfectly 
expressed,  is  far  more  effective.  This  is  perhaps  why  non- 
Semitic  writers  of  German,  like  Kiirnberger,  have  made  so 
deep  a  mark.  Though  possibly  less  gifted  than  their  Jewish 
colleagues,  they  stand  on  firmer  ground  and  speak  with 
temperamental  directness  to  the  temperaments  of  their 
readers,  whereas  the  Jewish  writer  speaks  chiefly  from  the 
brain  to  the  brain  of  an  alien  race.  There  is  yet  another 
reason  for  Jewish  literary  inferiority.  The  mother  tongue 
of  most  Jewish  journalists  in  Austria  is  or  was  Yiddish. 
The  influence  of  the  jargon  is  frequently  discernible  in 
their  work.  Their  vocabulary,  their  turns  of  phrase  reveal 
it.  When  they  strive  to  escape  it  they  are  apt  to  fall 
into  artificiality.  The  contorted  "  high-falutin' "  style 
of  "Maximilian  Harden,"  editor -proprietor  of  the  Berlin 
Zukunft,  is  a  case  in  point.  No  pages  of  the  Packet  are 
more  amusing  than  those  in  which  Kraus,  under  the  heading 
"  Desperanto,"  translates  Harden  into  German.  The  Jewish 
jargon  press  and  especially  Yiddish  plays  show,  on  the  other 
hand,  how  powerful  and  direct  Jewish  authors  can  be  when 
expressing  their  own  thoughts  in  their  own  way,  and  speaking 
without  mummery  to  a  public  they  know.  Should  the 
Zionist  movement  eventually  lead  to  a  revival  of  Hebrew  as 
a  living  language,  the  literature  of  the  world  might  yet  be 
enriched  by  masterpieces  not  unworthy  of  the  old  Jewish 
Scriptures.  In  the  meantime  writers  who,  like  Heine,  produce 
masterpieces  in  a  non-Jewish  tongue  are  likely  to  be  rare. 
The  assimilated  Jew,  who  knows  neither  Hebrew  nor  jargon, 
is  usually  too  far  removed  from  his  native  stock  to  possess 

O 


194  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

the  originality  that  springs  from  the  instinctive  expression  of 
race-temperament.  He  may  have  the  form  but  is  likely  to 
lack  the  substance  of  his  adopted  language,  to  be  a  master 
of  the  letter  but  incapable  of  expressing  its  spirit  save  in 
rationalized,  artificial  fashion.  Unassimilated  Jews,  who 
retain  their  native  temperament  and  directness  of  feeling,  are 
wofully  handicapped  by  having  to  use  a  foreign  tongue.  At 
its  best  their  German  work  often  exhales  an  exotic  savour  ; 
at  its  worst,  it  is  current  German  journalese. 

THE  PRESS  BUREAUX 

The  main  defect  of  the  Austrian  press  is,  however,  its 
semi-officialism.  The  term  "  semi-official  "  sounds  strange  to 
English  ears  but  there  is  no  other  equivalent  for  the  German 
expression  offizios — an  expression  intelligible  only  in  relation 
to  bureaucratic  control  over  public  life,  and  indicating  that 
the  opinions  of  the  press  are  inspired  by  officials  on  behalf 
of  "  authorities."  Semi-officialism  is  intended  to  influence 
the  public  without  letting  the  public  know  that  it  is  being 
influenced.  In  Austria- Hungary,  several  Departments  of 
State  maintain  special  bureaux  for  this  purpose — notably 
the  War  Office,  the  Premier's  Office,  the  Home  Offices  in 
Austria  and  Hungary,  and  especially  the  Vienna  Foreign 
Office — and  endow  them  liberally  with  secret  funds  for  the 
"  encouragement "  of  journals  and  journalists.  Ostensibly 
the  object  is  to  supply  the  press  with  authentic  and  reliable 
information  but,  in  reality,  the  work  of  a  press  bureau  is 
to  control,  inspire,  corrupt,  spy  upon  and  intimidate  the  press 
and  its  representatives.  The  insidious  power  of  a  well- 
organized  press  bureau  needs  to  be  experienced  in  order  to 
be  fully  understood.  In  the  case  of  the  Press  Bureau,  or,  as 
it  styles  itself,  the  "  Literary  Department "  of  the  Foreign 
Office,  the  power  is  international  and  extends  to  Berlin, 
London,  Paris,  Rome,  St.  Petersburg,  the  Balkan  Capitals, 
and  even  to  the  United  States.  Its  methods  vary  according 
to  circumstances  and  to  the  persons  with  whom  it  has  to 


THE  PEOPLE  195 

deal.  The  head  of  the  Bureau  is  a  Foreign  Office  official 
who  has  usually  been,  but  is  not  invariably,  of  Jewish 
extraction.  Attached  to  him  is  a  large  staff  of  journalistic 
officials  conversant  with  the  principal  European  languages 
and  commissioned  to  report  from  day  to  day  upon  the  foreign 
press.  The  "  Literary  Bureau  "  subscribes  to  the  chief  foreign 
newspapers  and  receives,  besides,  periodical  reports  from  the 
Austro- Hungarian  Embassies,  Legations  and  Consulates 
abroad.  An  exact  register  is  kept  of  the  position,  resources, 
proprietorship  and  connexions  of  each  important  foreign 
journal,  while  its  representatives  in  Austria-Hungary  are 
watched  and  their  opinions  and  doings  noted  either  by  the 
secret  police  or  by  the  Press  Bureau  itself.  Alongside  of 
the  journalistic  officials  commissioned  to  report  on  the  foreign 
press,  a  staff  of  regular  official  writers,  recruited  from  the 
ranks  of  professional  journalists,  is  employed  to  furnish  semi- 
official articles  to  the  home  and  foreign  journals  that  are 
subsidized  from  the  secret  funds  or  otherwise  controlled  by 
the  Bureau.  Such  articles  are  transmitted  by  telephone  and 
telegraph  or,  if  time  allows,  by  mail,  to  the  editors  of  the 
journals  in  question,  who  know  that  failure  to  publish  would 
involve  a  withdrawal  of  the  subsidies,  the  stoppage  of  official 
news  and  eventually  a  campaign  of  intimidation.  Where 
editors  or  proprietors  are  unapproachable,  recourse  is  had  to 
their  correspondents  who  are  "shepherded"  by  "well-disposed" 
colleagues,  plied  with  news  and,  in  some  cases,  offered  re- 
muneration on  a  scale  equal  to  that  of  the  emoluments  they 
receive  from  their  journals.  An  under-paid  and  friendless 
correspondent  in  Vienna  may  thus  be  exposed  to  consider- 
able temptation.  Rejection  of  the  advances  made  to  him 
may  earn  him  the  hostility  of  the  Bureau  and  its  agents  ; 
acceptance  may  mean  an  increase  of  income,  the  advantage 
of  being  able  to  shine  from  time  to  time  by  supplying  his 
journal  or  journals  with  tit-bits  of  "  exclusive  "  information, 
and  the  certainty  of  official  favour  in  his  everyday  work. 
To  the  honour  of  many  foreign  correspondents  in  Vienna  be 
it  said  that  they  prefer  the  drawbacks  of  independence  to 


196  THE   HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

the  sweets  of  semi-officialism.  The  exceptions  among  them 
are  well  known  ;  but  unfortunately  it  does  not  follow  that  the 
readers  of  journals  supplied  with  tainted  views  and  informa- 
tion are  aware  of  the  sources  from  which  their  "  knowledge  " 
is  derived.  The  honest  correspondent  may  even  find  him- 
self circumvented  by  the  action  of  the  local  agents  of  the 
"  Literary  Bureau  "  in  the  country  where  his  journal  is  pub- 
lished. Cases  are  known  of  leading  articles  having  been 
foisted,  ready  written,  even  upon  reputable  English  news- 
papers whose  editors  had  no  notion  of  the  veritable  origin 
of  the  views  to  which  they  were  giving  currency  and  may 
even  have  felt  flattered  to  find  "  their "  leader  subsequently 
reproduced  in  full  as  "  an  authoritative  English  opinion  "  in 
the  Austro-Hungarian  organs  of  the  "  Literary  Bureau  "  !  It 
may  be  asked  what  purpose  can  be  served  by  manoeuvres 
of  this  kind,  seeing  that  the  smuggling  of  Austro-Hungarian 
semi-official  opinions  into  the  foreign  press  would  need  to 
take  place  on  a  much  larger  scale  than  is  practically  possible 
if  foreign  public  opinion  and  foreign  governments  are  really 
to  be  influenced.  The  answer  is  that  however  futile  single 
manifestations  of  Press  Bureau  activity  may  seem  to  be,  they 
form  part  of  a  system  which  is  extremely  insidious  and  is 
sometimes  extremely  effective.  While  agents  are  attempting 
to  influence  the  press  abroad  and  "  well-disposed  "  corre- 
spondents are  seconding  them  from  Vienna,  efforts  are 
simultaneously  made  to  influence  the  Vienna  Embassies  or 
Legations  of  the  governments  upon  which  it  is  desired  to 
produce  an  impression.  The  personal  foibles  of  Ambassadors 
or  Ministers  are  studied  and  played  upon.  If  an  Ambassador 
be  vain,  his  vanity  is  assiduously  flattered  ;  if  he  have  com- 
promised himself  by  imprudent  conduct  or  language,  he  is 
made  to  feel  that  his  recall  will  not  be  asked  for  provided 
he  lend  himself  to  the  propagation  of  Austro-Hungarian 
official  views.  Diplomatists  are  human  and  fear  nothing  so 
much  as  having  it  whispered  that  they  are  not  "  agreeable 
persons  "  to  the  governments  to  which  they  are  accredited. 
They  wish  also  to  be  thought  "well-informed"  and,  as  the 


THE  PEOPLE  197 

acquisition  of  reliable  information  and  sure  judgment  entails 
in  Vienna  harder  and  more  constant  work  than  most  diplo- 
matists care  to  undertake,  they  are  reluctant  to  close  their 
doors  to  the  emissaries  sent  to  inoculate  them  with  "  con- 
fidential "  information.  These  emissaries  are  of  several  kinds. 
The  most  efficient  are  the  editors  or  members  of  the  staff  of 
semi-official  journals.  The  information  they  supply  is,  as  a 
rule,  so  delicately  adjusted  to  the  taste  of  the  diplomatic 
victim  that  he  is  not  infrequently  misled  into  allowing  it  to 
colour  his  reports  to  his  government.  At  critical  moments, 
additional  means  of  influencing  foreign  opinion  are  employed. 
Foreign  journalists  of  note  are  encouraged  to  come  to  Vienna, 
are  granted  easy  access  to  Austro- Hungarian  Ministers 
and  other  personages  of  State  and  are  able  to  declare 
without  fear  of  contradiction  that  their  information  is  "  in- 
variably drawn  from  the  very  best  sources."  When  they 
leave  Vienna  arrangements  are  made  to  keep  them  periodically 
supplied  with  "  information  "  of  equal  quality ;  and  it  is  only 
when,  as  during  the  Balkan  crisis  of  1912-1913,  events 
perversely  flout  their  predictions  and  belie  their  "positive 
knowledge "  that  unwary  readers  begin  to  doubt  their 
infallibility. 

The  "  Literary  Bureau "  has,  besides,  at  its  service  a 
number  of  what  may  be  termed  demi-semi-official  organs 
and  agencies  in  the  shape  of  lithographed  or  printed 
Correspondenzen.  A  Correspondenz  is  a  news-sheet  printed 
as  manuscript  and  subsidized  from  the  secret  funds.  Into 
it  the  "  Authorities  "  pour  information  for  which  they  would 
not  care  to  be  made  directly  responsible.  Most  of  the  un- 
truths designed  to  create  an  "  atmosphere "  favourable  to 
Austro-Hungarian  policy  that  are  systematically  disseminated 
in  and  from  Vienna  on  Balkan,  Albanian  and  Southern  Slav 
topics  pass  through  these  semi-clandestine  Correspondenzen. 
The  Politische  Correspondenz,  the  prototype  of  such  news- 
sheets,  stands,  however,  in  a  class  by  itself.  It  is  frankly  and 
admittedly  semi-official.  Its  editor  is  directly  subordinate  to 
the  Head  of  the  Foreign  Office  Press  Bureau,  whose  responsi- 


198  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

bility  for  its  publications  is  acknowledged  ;  but  its  demi- 
semi-official  contemporaries  have  no  recognized  status  and 
masquerade  as  independent  undertakings.  The  Press  Bureau 
is  always  able  to  disavow  them,  though  they  are  invariably 
edited  in  accordance  with  the  views  which  it  desires  to 
propagate. 

Since  the  publication  of  Busch's  Bismarck  ;  Some  Secret 
Pages  of  His  History,  the  English  public  has  had  at  its 
disposal  a  classical  account  of  the  Press  Bureau  of  the 
German  Foreign  Office  and  of  its  tortuous  methods.  No 
indiscreet  scribe  has  yet  ventured  to  reveal  from  the  inside 
the  workings  of  the  Vienna  Press  Bureau  nor  to  explain  the 
manner  in  which  it  co-operates  with  its  sister  institution  in 
Berlin.  Austro-Hungarian  press  officials  have,  however,  con- 
fessed in  unguarded  moments  that,  just  as  there  exists  a 
secret  military  convention  between  Austria- Hungary  and 
Germany,  so  there  exists  an  arrangement  by  which  the 
Austro-Hungarian  semi-official  organs  are  placed  at  the  dis- 
posal of  Germany  in  regard  to  international  questions 
affecting  interests  mainly  German,  while  the  German  semi- 
official press  is  placed  at  the  disposal  of  Austria-Hungary 
when  Austro-Hungarian  interests  are  principally  involved. 
When  the  interests  of  the  two  countries  clash,  confusion  en- 
sues. During  the  summer  of  1905  a  German  Foreign  Office 
organ  alleged  that  in  case  of  the  outbreak  of  war  between 
Germany,  France  and  England  over  the  Morocco  question, 
Austria- Hungary  would  be  bound  to  give  Germany  armed 
support.  The  assertion  was  immediately  challenged  in 
Vienna,  not  by  the  Fremdenblatt  or  any  other  prominent 
Foreign  Office  organ,  but  by  the  (now  defunct)  Conservative- 
Catholic  Vaterland.  So  authoritative  was  the  tone  of  the 
Vaterland  article  that  interested  enquirers  asked  the 
"  Literary  Bureau "  why  an  utterance  of  such  importance 
had  been  relegated  to  the  comparative  obscurity  of  the 
Vaterland  instead  of  appearing  in  a  recognized  Foreign 
Office  organ.  The  explanation  given  was  that  German  con- 
trol over  the  Austro-Hungarian  press  was,  in  virtue  of  the 


THE  PEOPLE  199 

reciprocity  arrangement  and  for  other  reasons,  so  strong  that 
no  Austrian  journal  of  note  would  accept  criticism  of  Germany 
even  though  the  criticism  were  furnished  with  the  imprimatur 
of  the  Austro-Hungarian  Foreign  Office.  The  Vaterland 
alone  enjoyed  sufficient  independence  or  was  considered  un- 
important enough  to  escape  the  German  yoke.  Since  that 
time  the  Austro-Hungarian  Foreign  Office  press  has  acquired 
a  greater  measure  of  independence,  possibly  because  the 
Balkan  crisis  that  began  with  the  annexation  of  Bosnia- 
Herzegovina  in  October  1908  has  thrust  Austro-Hungarian 
interests  into  the  foreground  and  has  compelled  the  more 
official  of  the  German  semi-official  organs  to  respect  an 
arrangement  of  which  the  working  was  previously  unilateral. 
Yet  the  pernicious  facts  remain  that  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  press  is  almost  entirely  under  official  control 
when  dealing  with  questions  of  foreign  policy  and  that  the 
public  rarely  gets  an  inkling  of  the  merits  of  a  situation 
that  may  involve  the  country  in  war.  During  the  Morocco 
crisis  of  1905—1906,  Austro-Hungarian  ignorance  of  the 
position  of  affairs  in  Europe  was  complete.  Not  until  after 
the  Conference  of  Algeciras  in  April  1 906,  did  any  Austrian 
journal  lay  before  its  readers  an  intelligible  account  of  the 
origin  and  course  of  the  crisis.  The  German  Press  Bureau 
conducted  its  campaign  against  France  and  England  even 
more  in  Austro-Hungarian  than  in  German  journals.  Even 
when,  after  the  diplomatic  defeat  of  Germany  at  Algeciras, 
the  Neue  Freie  Presse  allowed  M.  Georges  Clemenceau  to 
state  in  its  columns  the  bare  facts  concerning  the  recent  past 
— facts  that  gave  the  lie  to  the  inventions  which  the  Neue 
Freie  Presse  and  its  contemporaries  had  previously  foisted 
upon  the  public — it  continued  tranquilly  its  campaign  of 
conscious  untruthfulness  and  left  its  readers  bewildered. 
Similarly,  before  and  during  the  annexation  crisis  of  1908- 
1909,  Austrian  journals,  under  the  influence  of  Count 
Aehrenthal's  Press  Bureau,  rigorously  excluded  from  their 
columns  all  information  contrary  to  the  official  thesis,  and 
waged  war,  not  only  against  Russia  and  Servia,  but  against 


200  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

the  best  interests  of  the  Monarchy  itself.  Nemesis  overtook 
the  Press  Bureau  and  its  organs  during  the  recent  Balkan 
war.  Events  belied  official  and  semi-official  doctrine  so 
rapidly  and  unmistakably  that  the  public  actually  awoke  to 
the  situation  and  understood  for  a  moment  the  deleterious 
effects,  moral  and  material,  of  Government  control  of  the 
press  and  of  the  constant  inoculation  of  the  public  mind 
with  mendacious  statement  and  misleading  suggestion. 

But,  it  may  be  urged,  the  press  itself  is  largely  to  blame 
for  abetting  such  abuse  of  public  opinion.  Seeing  that  the 
chief  Austrian  organs  are  financially  independent,  voluntary 
collusion  with  the  Government  is  surely  more  reprehensible 
than  mere  corruption  would  be.  It  is  difficult  satisfactorily 
to  answer  these  objections.  The  larger  organs  of  the 
Austrian  press  are  financially  independent  but  on  questions 
of  foreign  policy  they  fear  the  Government.  Confiscation 
may  await  those  that  fall  into  the  pernicious  habit  of  holding 
aloof  from  "  official  circles."  The  trend  of  public  feeling  is 
against  the  systematic  adoption  by  any  journal  of  an  "  anti- 
patriotic,"  that  is  to  say  anti-official,  attitude,  even  though 
the  attitude  be  inspired  by  consideration  for  the  higher 
interests  of  the  country.  However  much  the  people  may 
grumble  and  cavil  at  official  policy,  the  feeling  that  after 
all  it  is  the  business  of  the  government  to  look  after  public 
affairs  and  that  "  the  authorities "  know  better  than  any 
unofficial  wiseacre  what  should  or  should  not  be  done,  is  too 
strong  to  permit  the  growth  of  a  powerful  body  of  independent 
opinion.  Indirect  criticism  is  tolerated  and  at  times  even 
welcomed,  but  it  is  taken  for  granted  that  it  will  exercise 
no  practical  effect  The  Viennese  atmosphere  of  amiable, 
sceptical,  satirical  indifference  affects  the  whole  tone  of  the 
press  and  causes  any  writer  who  takes  public  interest  to 
heart  in  a  manner  not  approved  of  by  the  authorities  to 
be  considered  eccentric  or,  at  best,  to  be  suspected  of 
having  some  private  axe  to  grind  under  cloak  of  vociferous 
solicitude  for  the  public  welfare. 

Within  these  limitations  the  Austrian-German  press  is, 


THE  PEOPLE  201 

in  many  respects,  technically  excellent  It  is,  on  the  whole, 
better  written  and  better  printed  than  .  the  majority  of 
journals  in  Germany.  Its  arrangements  for  reporting 
political  speeches  in  Parliament  are,  on  occasion,  extremely 
efficient  An  important  speech  delivered  in  Magyar  at 
Budapest  as  late  as  one  p.m.  will  often  be  printed  in  extenso 
by  the  Neue  Freie  Presse  or  the  Neues  Wiener  Tagblatt  an 
hour  later.  It  is  taken  down  in  German  shorthand  by 
bilingual  Jewish  reporters  who  read  their  notes  through  the 
telephone  to  stenographers  at  Vienna  and  these  in  their  turn 
dictate  them  to  type-writers  or,  when  time  presses,  to  the 
type-setters.  Similarly,  on  weighty  occasions,  the  proceed- 
ings in  the  House  of  Commons  or  the  Palais  Bourbon  will 
be  telegraphed  very  fully  to  the  Neue  Freie  Presse,  which, 
despite  its  many  failings,  is  not  so  far  americanized  as  to 
think  its  readers  incapable  of  concentrating  their  attention 
for  more  than  five  minutes  on  one  subject  But,  alongside 
of  these  laudable  features,  the  reports  of  foreign  events  in 
which  Austria-Hungary  has  or  is  supposed  to  have  a  special 
kind  of  interest,  are  apt  to  be  trimmed  and  cut,  even  by  the 
Official  Telegraph  Agency,  with  singular  disregard  for 
accuracy.  Fair  play  and  good  faith  sometimes  seem  to  be 
concepts  foreign  to  the  Austrian  journalistic  mind.  Sup- 
pressio  -veri  and  suggestio  falsi  are  by  no  means  tabooed. 
No  journal  feels  called  upon,  out  of  mere  regard  for  truth  or 
impartiality,  to  expose  itself  to  a  diminutio  capitis  ;  and  he 
who  has  occasion  to  correct  deliberate  misstatements  and 
misrepresentations  will  be  well  advised  to  devise  a  formula 
not  wounding  to  the  amour  propre  of  the  journal  in  question. 
To  compel  an  Austrian  newspaper,  by  invoking  Clause  XIX. 
of  the  Press  Law,  to  eat  its  own  words  is  a  draconian  pro- 
ceeding tantamount  to  a  declaration  of  war.  In  such  a  case 
an  editor  is  considered  to  be  well  within  his  rights  if  he 
append  a  malicious  postscript  to  the  compulsory  rectification. 
Far  wiser  then — from  the  Viennese  standpoint — to  adopt  a 
"  formula  "  which  the  journal  can  print  without  loss  of  "  face," 
and  to  trust  the  public  to  read  between  the  lines. 


202  THE   HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

VIENNA  AND  "VIENNA" 

The  "  Viennese  standpoint "  is,  simply,  to  avoid  unpleasant- 
ness, to  take  life  easily,  sceptically,  and  to  get  out  of  it  as 
much  thoughtless  enjoyment  as  possible.  Abroad,  Vienna 
has  a  reputation  for  "  gaiety,"  dating,  perhaps,  from  the  Con- 
gress of  1 8 1  5.  Of  this  reputed  gaiety,  the  critical  stranger 
sees  little.  He  sees  a  whole  population  trying  to  be  gay, 
but  little  spontaneous  merriment.  Centuries  of  absolutist 
government  working  upon  a  temperament  compounded  of 
Celtic  versatility,  South  German  slackness  and  Slav  sensuous- 
ness,  have — thanks  to  the  constant  efforts  of  the  authorities 
to  turn  attention  away  from  public  affairs  and  towards 
amusement — ended  by  producing  a  population  of  dilettanti, 
disposed  to  take  nothing  seriously  save  the  pursuit  of 
pleasure.  The  result  is  depressing  to  those  not  born  to  the 
Viennese  manner  or  capable  of  assimilating  the  Viennese 
standpointlessness.  The  Viennese  themselves  hold  their 
city  incomparable — as  indeed  it  is,  after  its  fashion.  Their 
pride  in  it  and  in  themselves  as  its  inhabitants  is  intense, 
far  deeper-rooted  and  livelier  than  the  pride  of  the  Parisian 
in  Paris.  For  this  pride  there  are  many  valid  reasons. 
No  European  capital  has  so  Imperial  an  air,  none  finer 
boulevards,  none  a  more  magnificent  park  at  its  gates  or 
more  delightful  surroundings.  First  impressions  of  Vienna 
are  usually  seductive.  The  combination  of  stateliness  and 
homeliness,  of  colour  and  light,  the  comparative  absence  of 
architectural  monstrosities  and  the  soft  Italian  influence 
everywhere  apparent,  contribute,  together  with  the  grace 
and  beauty  of  the  women,  the  polite  friendliness  of  the 
inhabitants  and  the  broad,  warm  accent  of  their  speech,  to 
charm  the  eye  and  ear  of  every  travelled  visitor.  Then,  in 
a  brief  space,  the  spell  is  often  broken.  Disillusionment, 
of  the  kind  that  overtakes  a  guest  during  too  long  a  tete-a- 
tete  with  a  handsome  hostess  who  is  handsome  but  nothing 
more,  sets  in  and  sometimes  inclines  strangers  to  harsh  and 
hasty  judgment.  The  defects  of  the  city  are  felt  to  out- 


THE  PEOPLE  203 

weigh  its  attractions.  The  population  appears  soulless,  its 
easy-going  character  amorphous,  its  politeness  hollow,  its 
honesty  dubious  and  its  vanity  insufferable.  The  very  archi- 
tecture of  Viennese  buildings  seems  to  stand  in  no  relation 
to  Viennese  life  save,  perhaps,  the  Baroque  which,  with  its 
apotheosis  of  unreality,  somehow  suits  the  character  of  a 
people  that  has  latterly  adopted  with  snobbish  alacrity 
the  unintelligible  canons  of  "  modern  art."  This  dis- 
illusionment may  last  until  the  stranger  discovers  in  some 
odd  corner  of  the  city  a  veritable  Viennese  and  finds  that 
beneath  the  appearance  of  gaiety  there  is  much  quiet,  hard 
work,  beneath  the  superficial  politeness  much  real  courtesy, 
alongside  of  childishness,  great  shrewdness  and  knowledge 
of  mankind,  and,  amid  scepticism  and  carelessness,  an 
amazing  richness  of  talent.  The  level  of  talent  in  Vienna 
is  remarkably  high  though  it  is  often  a  talent  without  object 
or  intelligible  purpose.  The  "  stupidity "  of  the  Viennese 
and  of  Austrians  generally,  by  which  strangers  are  so  often 
struck,  proceeds  not  from  lack  of  wits  but  from  absence 
of  opportunity  for  the  application  of  intelligence.  The 
beginning  of  positive  intelligence  is  discipline  of  attention. 
The  Viennese  have  never  been  schooled  to  concentrate  their 
minds  upon  matters  more  important  than  concerts,  theatres, 
sports  and  amusements.  Proof  that  their  "  stupidity "  is 
due  to  lack  of  opportunity  rather  than  of  capacity  is  afforded 
whenever  Austrians  in  general  and  Viennese  in  particular 
find  employment  abroad.  The  number  of  Austrians  who 
have  achieved  intellectual  and  technical  distinction  in 
Germany,  the  United  States,  the  Argentine  Republic  and 
other  countries  is  astonishing.  But  at  home  they  seem  to 
be  hypnotized  by  the  general  atmosphere  of  unreality.  In 
their  hearts  the  best  of  them  often  resent  the  impotence  to 
which  they  are  condemned  by  the  political,  social  and  moral 
conditions  of  their  life ;  yet  they  are  loth  to  admit  that 
Viennese  life  is  not,  in  its  way,  ideal.  "  A  Viennese,"  writes 
Bahr,1  "  is  a  man  very  unhappy  about  himself,  who  hates 

1   Wien,  by  Hermann  Bahr,  p.  9. 


204  THE   HAPSBURG   MONARCHY 

the  Viennese  but  cannot  live  without  them,  who  despises 
himself  but  is  touched  by  his  own  condition,  who  constantly 
grumbles  but  wishes  to  be  constantly  praised,  who  feels 
miserable  but  finds  comfort  in  wretchedness,  who  always 
complains,  always  threatens  but  puts  up  with  everything 
except  that  any  one  should  presume  to  help  him — then  he 
defends  himself." 

And  again,  in  speaking  of  Viennese  talent,1  "  Nowhere 
in  the  wide  world  is  there  so  much  talent  as  in  Vienna, 
talent  for  everything,  political  and  artistic.  But  it  is  talent 
of  a  special  kind,  attached  to  nothing,  hanging  in  the  air,  a 
talent  with  nothing  to  express  but  itself,  purposeless,  void,  a 
hollow  nut.  Here  are  young  actors  able  to  communicate 
feelings  they  do  not  feel ;  here  people,  who  are  themselves 
empty,  revel  in  the  finest  verses.  Here  is  all  political  wisdom 
which  no  man  knows  how  to  use.  No  one  has  a  will. 
Viennese  talent  is  like  an  abandoned  piano,  containing  all 
potentialities  of  sound,  but  silent.  Men  do  not  lack  talent 
but  talent  lacks  men.  Every  man  hides  his  manliness. 
The  fear,  wrought  into  their  fathers,  is  still  too  great.  Hence 
the  terror  of  the  Viennese  when  a  real  man  appears  among 
them.  They  find  him  uncanny  and  would  like  to  hide  from 
him — unless  they  be  in  a  theatre.  On  the  stage  they  know 
it  will  be  over  in  three  hours.  The  Viennese  are  still  able 
to  bear  reality  as  a  representation  though  they  are  glad  that 
the  dangerous  beast  has  been  chained  up  with  chains  of  art. 
A  real  man  in  real  life,  the  Viennese  have  never  tolerated  ; 
neither  Beethoven  nor  Hebbel  nor  Kiirnberger  nor  Hugo 
Wolf  nor  Mahler.  Real  men  are  kept  in  the  cage  of  an 
immense  solitude.  The  Viennese  never  let  them  enter  their 
beloved  light  and  lusty  life.  Hence  the  great  silence  of 
Vienna.  Nothing  moves,  nothing  can  happen.  The  boldest, 
the  greatest  acts  have  no  effect ;  they  remain  hidden.  The 
thinker,  the  doer  must  hide  himself — '  isolated  and  power- 
less,' as  Hebbel  said — and  take  his  thoughts  and  deeds 
home  with  him  and  stow  them  away  in  a  secret  drawer. 

1   Wien,  pp.  77-78. 


THE  PEOPLE  205 

Outside,  the  attractive  appearance  of  life  in  the  dear,  light, 
soft-living  city  goes  on  untroubled." 

The  problem  of  Vienna  as,  indeed,  the  problem  of 
Austria  and  of  the  Monarchy  is  how  to  adjust  appearances 
to  reality  and  to  bring  more  sincerity  into  life.  Hitherto 
the  "  authorities  "  have  striven  to  adjust  reality  to  appear- 
ances. The  argument  that  Vienna  is  not  Austria  and,  still 
less,  the  Monarchy,  holds  good  in  the  sense  that  life  in  the 
Austrian  provinces  and  in  parts  of  Hungary  is  more  real  and 
direct  than  in  Vienna.  Some  writers,  Bahr  among  them, 
maintain  that  Vienna  no  longer  wields  decisive  influence  and 
that  the  fate  of  the  Monarchy  and  of  Vienna  will  be  settled 
by  the  Hapsburg  peoples  without  much  consideration  for 
Viennese  preferences.  This  view  might  be  sound  had  the 
Hapsburg  peoples  a  corporate  life  apart  from  Vienna  or  had 
they  any  common  purpose  save  such  as  may  be  suggested  to 
or  imposed  on  them  by  Vienna.  Though  Vienna  may  be 
powerless  to  solve  the  problem  of  the  Monarchy,  it  is 
powerful  to  impede  solutions  and  to  foment  distrust  and 
hatred  among  the  Hapsburg  peoples  and  even  among 
peoples  beyond  the  frontier.  The  Viennese  atmosphere — 
which  attains  its  fullest  expression  in  the  official,  military 
and  police  spheres  whose  lack  of  moral  sense  and  of  ethical 
imagination  has  made  the  name  "  Vienna "  a  by-word 
throughout  the  Monarchy — affects,  directly  and  indirectly, 
every  aspect  of  political  life  in  the  Hapsburg  Dominions. 
To  trace  the  genesis  of  "  Vienna "  would  be  to  write  a 
psychological  history  of  the  Austrian  Empire.  It  is  mainly 
a  product  of  education  on  Jesuit  lines  under  a  Dynasty  which 
long  believed  its  mission  to  be  that  of  world-domination,  the 
famous  "  A.E.I.  O.U.  policy" — Austriae  Est  Imperare  Orbi 
Universe.  In  the  spirit  of  domination,  Dynasty  and  Jesuits 
found  themselves  agreed.  Around  them  gathered  a  clientele 
of  German,  Magyar,  Czech,  Polish,  French,  Italian,  Irish, 
Scottish  and  Spanish  families — largely  reinforced  during 
recent  generations  by  baptized  Jews — a  clientele  united  only 
in  the  determination  to  gain  advancement  and  influence.  As 


206  THE   HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

Mickiewicz  wrote  seventy  years  ago,  the  Austrian  Empire  has 
never  been  German,  Hungarian  or  Slav,  but  has  been  ruled 
by  a  caste  of  inter-related  families  battening  on  the  Dynasty 
and  its  peoples.  Bahr  rightly  says  that  one  of  the  most 
pressing  Austrian  problems  is  how  to  break  the  power  of  this 
— now  largely  bureaucratic — caste  of  political  middlemen 
and  to  adjust  the  structure  of  the  State  to  the  needs  of  the 
Hapsburg  peoples.  But  it  is  an  open  question  whether  the 
power  of  the  caste  can  be  broken  before  it  has  broken 
the  Monarchy.  From  Lemberg  to  Mostar  and  from  Kolozsvar 
to  Innsbruck,  men  of  public  spirit  may  be  heard  in  different 
tongues  but  identical  tone  denouncing  the  arrogance,  narrow- 
mindedness,  faithlessness,  and  stupidity  of  "  Vienna,"  and,  to 
a  lesser  extent,  of  "  Budapest,"  which  now  rivals  "  Vienna  " 
in  lack  of  moral  consciousness.  To  visit  the  Hapsburg 
Monarchy  in  its  length  and  breadth  is  to  realize  how  great  are 
its  resources  and  how  immense  its  possibilities,  and  to  compre- 
hend that  the  bonds  uniting  its  peoples  are,  or  might  be, 
stronger  than  the  elements  of  division.  But  everywhere  the 
blighting  breath  of  the  Capital  can  be  felt  and,  on  approaching 
Vienna,  faith  and  idealism  vanish.  It  is  this  moral  void  that 
makes  most  foreigners  and  many  Austrians  feel  perennially 
strangers  in  the  Austrian  Capital.  Its  "  Asiatic  "  character, 
to  which  Metternich  and  Kiirnberger  alike  bore  witness, 
repels  those  who  would  fain  feel  at  home  within  its  walls, 
and  whom  mere  climatic  or  physical  drawbacks  would  not 
deter.  For  forty  years  the  Viennese  have  been  studying 
how  to  draw  a  stream  of  foreign  visitors  to  their  city  and  for 
forty  years  have  been  astounded  at  their  failure.  They 
enumerate  the  attractions  of  Vienna,  the  multiplicity  of  its 
pleasures,  the  beauty  of  its  monuments  and  the  charm  of  its 
natural  surroundings  ;  but  they  forget  that  for  a  capital  to 
act  as  a  magnet  upon  strangers  it  must  have  a  soul  of  its 
own  with  which  the  stranger  can  secretly  commune.  Both 
Vienna  and  "  Vienna  "  are  soulless  or,  at  least,  their  "  souls  " 
are  so  much  in  abeyance  that  neither  thrills  the  thoughtful 
stranger  with  that  inward  satisfaction  which  moves  the  heart. 


CHAPTER    IV 

FOREIGN    POLICY 

Soulevee  par  la  question  d'Orient,  la  question  polonaise  semble 
tranchee  depuis  1815.  Voila  un  siecle  que  1'on  travaille  a  resoudre  la 
question  d'Orient.  Le  jour  ou  1'on  croira  1'avoir  resolue,  1'Europe 
verra  se  poser  inevitablement  la  question  d'Autriche.  (Albert  Sorel,  La 
Question  d'Orient  au  XVIII*  Silcle.  Paris,  1902,  p.  280.) 

THE  recent  wars  in  the  Balkans  have,  to  all  appearances, 
driven  the  Hapsburg  Monarchy  back  upon  itself  and  dispelled 
the  dream  of  a  "  March  to  Salonica  " — so  often  disavowed 
but  so  long  and  stubbornly  cherished  by  Austro- Hungarian 
statesmen  and  soldiers — as  completely  as  the  solution  of  the 
German  and  Italian  questions  in  1866  and  1870  destroyed 
the  possibility  of  Hapsburg  domination  in  Germany  and 
Italy.  The  question  whether  the  Balkan  wars  have  solved 
"  la  question  <f  Orient"  in  the  sense  in  which  the  late  M.  Albert 
Sorel  referred  to  it,  is  not  lightly  to  be  answered  ;  but  so 
much  of  it  appears  to  have  been  solved  as  to  suggest  the 
likelihood  that,  unless  Hapsburg  diplomacy  and  statecraft 
speedily  rise  to  the  occasion,  his  prediction  may  presently 
come  within  measurable  distance  of  fulfilment. 

In  many  modern  democracies  matters  relating  to  foreign 
policy  are  considered  of  secondary  importance.  Even  where 
the  vital  significance  of  foreign  affairs  is  recognized  they  are 
often  treated  as  occult  problems  or  as  relics  of  a  bygone  age, 
encumbering  a  field  that  would  otherwise  be  susceptible  of 
cultivation  by  steam -plough  and  harrow.  The  United 

207 


208  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

States  long  seemed  to  have  adopted  the  maxim,  "  Happy 
the  people  that  has  no  foreign  policy  "  ;  latterly  they  have 
awakened  to  the  importance  of  foreign  questions  but  have 
allowed  their  policy  to  be  unduly  influenced  by  Jewish 
financiers.  France,  whose  position  in  Europe  is  always  ex- 
posed to  foreign  aggression,  has  nevertheless  repeatedly 
tolerated  the  management  of  her  foreign  affairs  by  men  devoid 
of  special  training  or  knowledge  ;  and  her  diplomacy  is  often 
sadly  banker-ridden.  Italy  has  again  and  again  placed  her 
diplomatic  interests  at  the  mercy  of  politicians  better  fitted  to 
shine  in  business  or  in  the  law  courts  than  to  handle  affairs  of 
State  which  a  Cavour  would  have  approached  with  trepida- 
tion. England  has,  at  times,  succeeded  in  combining 
pre-democratic  tradition  with  parliamentary  practice.  In 
Austria -Hungary  the  pre-democratic  method  persists,  in 
reality  if  not  in  appearance,  and  its  drawbacks  are  seen  to 
be  even  more  serious  than  those  of  a  purely  democratic 
system.  The  management  of  foreign  affairs  in  the  Dual 
Monarchy  is  essentially  a  dynastic  prerogative,  usually  exer- 
cised with  the  help  of  a  diplomatically-trained  minister  who 
is  in  the  first  place,  "  Minister  of  the  Imperial  and  Royal 
Household,"  and  only  secondarily,  "  Minister  for  Foreign 
Affairs."  Andrassy  alone  possessed  an  influence  over 
foreign  policy  equal,  if  not  superior,  to  that  of  the  Monarchy. 
As  former  Premier  of  Hungary  and  co-author  with  Deak  of 
the  Dual  System,  he  endeavoured  so  to  shape  Hapsburg 
foreign  policy  as  to  bring  it  into  harmony  with  the  Dual 
System,  the  efficient  working  of  which  demands  the  pre- 
dominance of  Germans  over  Slavs  in  Austria,  and  of  Magyars 
over  Slavs  and  other  non-Magyars  in  Hungary.  A  foreign 
policy  worked  out  on  this  basis  was  bound  to  be  an ti- Slav 
and  anti-Russian  in  the  Balkans  if  not  in  Europe.  But  the 
Dynasty,  whose  interests  and  ambitions  always  control  foreign 
policy  in  the  long  run,  could  not  close  its  eyes  to  the  fact  that 
the  majority  of  its  subjects  are  Slavs,  and  that  by  pursuing 
an  anti-Slav  policy  it  was  courting  disaffection  at  home  and 
placing  itself  abroad  in  a  position  of  subservience  to  Germany. 


FOREIGN  POLICY  209 

The  momentous  question  forced  upon  the  Hapsburg  Dynasty 
by  the  independence  of  the  greater  part  of  the  Balkans  is 
whether  its  home  and  foreign  policy  shall  be  brought  into 
closer  harmony  with  the  numerical  balance  of  power  among 
its  own  peoples,  or  whether  it  will  risk  disaster  by  clinging  to 
traditions  that  events  have  gone  far  to  render  obsolete. 

Precedent  suggests  that,  for  the  present,  the  dynasty  will 
cling  to  tradition.  The  Hapsburg  mind  has  rarely  shown 
itself  elastic.  Misfortune  has  often  had  to  correct  concep- 
tions of  which  the  impracticability  had  long  been  evident 
to  detached  and  even  to  inimical  observers.  Both  Bismarck 
and  Cavour  understood  that  the  Hapsburg  policy  of  retain- 
ing sway  in  Germany  and  Italy  while  the  energies  of  home 
peoples  were  being  compressed  by  absolutism  and  desperate 
financial  expedients  were  being  employed  to  stave  off  bank- 
ruptcy, must  end  in  defeat  and  collapse.  Had  Francis  Joseph 
and  his  advisers  learned  from  the  Franco  -Piedmontese 
Alliance  of  1859  and  the  loss  of  Lombardy  that  Austrian 
rule  in  Italy  was  doomed,  they  might  have  purchased  an 
alliance  with  Italy  by  the  timely  cession  of  Venetia,  and 
have  faced  Prussia  with  such  strength  as  to  have  retarded 
the  unification  of  Germany  under  Prussian  leadership.  Pride, 
and  the  perpetual  inability  of  Austrian  statesmen  to  appre- 
ciate the  force  of  the  moral  elements  in  a  situation,  made 
them  strive  to  retain  their  power  in  Germany  and  Italy  alike 
without  attempting  seriously  to  create  at  home  conditions 
such  as  to  assure  to  the  dynasty  the  spontaneous  support 
of  its  peoples.  It  has  been  the  curse  of  the  Hapsburg 
Monarchy  that  its  internal  problems  have  never  been  dealt 
with  on  their  merits  but  have  been  treated  tentatively  from 
time  to  time  as  the  interests  of  dynastic  foreign  policy  may 
have  seemed  to  require.  After  the  rude  lesson  of  1859,  it 
would  have  been  possible  to  put  the  Monarchy  on  an 
internal  basis  of  federalized  unity  and  to  have  guaranteed 
the  various  Hapsburg  races  a  fair  chance  of  development 
without  placing  the  dynasty  in  the  position  of  unstable 
equilibrium  it  has  held  since  the  creation  of  the  Dual 

P 


210  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

System.  It  is  true  that  such  a  transformation  could  not 
have  been  effected  without  constructive  statesmanship  in- 
spired by  a  broad  sense  of  justice.  The  Bach  "  System  "  which 
the  disasters  of  1859  overthrew,  was  not  a  good  preparation 
for  lasting  reform.  The  morrow  of  oppression  is  rarely  the 
best  moment  for  expansive  confidence.  The  Hapsburg 
dynasty  and  the  bureaucrats  who  surround  it  have  yet  to 
learn  that  trust  and  gratitude  grow  but  slowly  on  the  ruins 
of  ill-treatment.  Moreover,  the  Hapsburg  conception  of  a 
dynastic  mission  excludes  the  idea  that  Hapsburg  peoples  can 
have  cause  for  resentment.  Peoples  behave  well  and  deserve 
recompense  when  they  second  dynastic  plans.  They  behave 
ill  and  deserve  correction  when  they  oppose  or  thwart  those 
plans.  The  cessation  of  just  punishment  is  a  sign  that 
Imperial  disfavour  has  ceased  and  that  rewards  may  be 
attainable  by  good  conduct.  Unless  this  standpoint  be  kept 
in  view,  Hapsburg  policy  at  home  and  abroad  will  ever  be 
unintelligible.  The  essays  in  constitutional  reform  made  in 
1860  and  1 86 1  after  the  collapse  of  the  Bach  System  were 
not  inspired  by  belief  in  the  value  of  constitutional  methods 
per  se,  but  by  the  empirical  consideration  that,  since  the 
Bach  System  had  worked  badly  as  a  basis  for  foreign  policy, 
something  else  must  be  tried.  Whether  the  "something 
else"  were  the  Federalist  Diploma  of  October  1860  or  the 
Centralist  Patent  of  February  1861  was  a  matter  of  com- 
parative indifference.  Not  until  defeat  at  Sadowa  had  com- 
pelled the  dynasty  to  reckon  with  a  force — that  of  the 
Magyars — obstinately  refractory  to  its  influence,  did  it  consent 
to  the  creation  of  a  "  something  else  "  over  which  it  could  no 
longer  exercise  full  control.  The  Dual  System,  hurriedly 
formed  under  the  influence  of  disaster,  made  the  Magyars  co- 
partners with  the  dynasty  and  left  them  a  freedom  of  action 
in  dealing  with  the  Southern  Slavs  and  other  non-Magyars 
that  was  destined  to  compromise,  perhaps  irremediably,  the 
interests  of  the  Monarchy  as  a  semi-Slav  state  both  at  home 
and  in  the  Balkan  Peninsula. 

Prior    to    the    establishment  of  the   Dual    System,  the 


FOREIGN  POLICY  211 

Eastern  Question  began  for  the  Monarchy  on  the  banks 
of  the  Save  and  beyond  the  South-Eastern  Carpathians. 
Dualism  shifted  it  farther  west  and  made  it  begin  for 
Austria  at  Budapest  and  for  Hungary  at  Agram.  The 
Austrian  Imperialist  and  dynastic  tendencies  known  as  the 
Drang  nach  Osten  found  in  Magyar  resistance  to  an  increase 
of  the  Slav  elements  in  the  Monarchy  a  formidable  obstacle 
to  expansion  in  the  Balkans ;  and  the  Magyars,  haunted  by 
memories  of  Jellachitch,1  strove  so  to  keep  the  Croatians 
and  Serbs  in  subjection  that  the  Southern  Slav  world, 
without  whose  help  or  acquiescence  an  Austro-Hungarian 
"  advance  to  Salonica "  would  have  been  a  perilous  adven- 
ture, gradually  became  distrustful  of  the  dynasty  and 
estranged  from  the  Monarchy.  Austria  and  the  dynasty, 
for  their  part,  could  not  work  with  the  Southern  Slavs 
without  undermining  Dualism.  Thus  the  Dual  System 
resolved  itself  into  a  system  of  political  paralysis  in  which 
immobility  became  the  only  pledge  of  equilibrium. 

The  operation  of  the  Dual  System  as  a  check  upon 
Imperialist  expansion  was  not  understood  at  the  outset. 
The  Magyar  authors  of  the  System,  Deak  and  Andrassy, 
especially  the  latter,  conceived  it  as  necessarily  subordinate 
to  the  higher  unity  of  the  Monarchy  in  diplomatic  and 
military  matters.  As  long  as  Deak's  influence  prevailed  in 
Hungary  and  Andrassy  was  able,  as  Austro-Hungarian 
Foreign  Minister,  to  guide  the  foreign  policy  of  the  Monarchy, 
the  veritable  character  of  Dualism  remained  concealed. 
Magyar  opposition  to  the  acquisition  of  Bosnia- Herzegovina 
in  1878  first  revealed  the  mind  of  the  Magyar  nation  which 
would  have  preferred  to  see  the  Monarchy  support  Turkey 
against  Russia  and  inflict  a  defeat  upon  the  Slav  cause. 
Andrassy  was  at  heart  an  Austro-Hungarian  Imperialist. 
Like  his  fellow-Magyars  he  disliked  and  distrusted  the  Pan- 
Slavist  tendencies  that  inspired  the  policy  of  Russia,  but  he 

1  The  famous  Ban  of  Croatia  who  led  the  Croatians  against  the  Magyars 
during  the  Revolution  of  1848.  His  statue  stands  in  the  Jellachitch  Square  at 
Agram,  holding  aloft  a  drawn  sabre  pointing  in  the  direction  of  Budapest. 


212  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

believed  in  the  Balkan  mission  of  the  Monarchy.  His  faith 
in  the  political  virtue  of  the  Magyar  people  was  too  robust  to 
allow  him  to  entertain  a  particularist  conception  of  its  future  or 
to  imagine  that  ihzglobus  hungaricus  must  be  a  garden  walled 
around  and  devoted  solely  to  the  intensive  culture  of  Magyar 
chauvinism.  The  acquisition  of  Bosnia-Herzegovina  seemed 
to  him  less  an  end  in  itself  than  a  stage  in  the  advance  towards 
the  political  if  not  the  military  conquest  of  the  Balkans. 
Though  he  might  not  have  been  ready  to  endorse  the  sanguine 
and  visionary  promise  of  the  Archduke  Rudolph  to  the  Arch- 
duchess Stephanie  at  Constantinople  in  the  early  'eighties, 
"  Hier  wirst  Du  Kaiserin  sein  ! "  he  would  scarcely  have  dis- 
couraged an  enthusiasm  that  was  in  complete  harmony  with 
the  aspirations  of  Hapsburg  rulers.  After  having  chained 
up  the  Russian  bear  by  means  of  the  Austro- German  Alliance 
of  1879,  and  having  left  open  a  door  for  an  understand- 
ing with  France  by  rejecting  Bismarck's  demand  that  the 
Alliance  be  directed  equally  against  France  and  Russia, 
Andrdssy  retired  from  office  with  the  feeling  that,  thanks  to 
his  efforts,  the  Dual  System  had  proved  its  value  as  a  basis 
for  a  vigorous  foreign  policy  and  that  his  secret  convention 
(of  July  13,  1878)  with  Russia  had  opened  for  the  Monarchy 
a  broad  road  into  the  Balkans. 

Despite  his  shrewdness,  Andrdssy  overlooked  several  im- 
portant factors  in  the  situation  which  he  bequeathed  in  1879 
to  Haymerle,  his  short-lived  successor.  Andrassy  had  been 
a  match  for  Bismarck.  Left  to  himself,  Bismarck  was  able, 
without  fear  of  control,  to  neutralize  the  efficacy  of  the 
Austro-German  Alliance  as  a  menace  to  Russia,  by  negotiating 
in  1884  a  secret  Russo-German  Re-Insurance  Treaty  in  order 
to  prevent  Russia  from  seeking  an  ally  in  France  ;  and  the 
Emperor  Francis  Joseph,  no  longer  restrained  by  the  influence 
of  the  vigilant  Magyar  Statesman,  was  free  to  essay  in  Austria 
a  Clerical  and  pro-Slav  policy  which  Andrassy  would  scarcely 
have  tolerated.  The  Emperor  was,  moreover,  dissatisfied  that 
Andrassy  should  have  contented  himself  with  a  mere  European 
mandate  to  "  occupy  and  administer "  Bosnia-Herzegovina. 


FOREIGN  POLICY  213 

He  desired  annexation  outright,  and  did  not  regard  the  secret 
Austro-Russian  Convention  as  a  full  equivalent.  This  Con- 
vention, signed  on  July  13,  1878,  ran  : — "  Le  gouvernement 
imperial  de  Russie  s'engage  de  son  cote1  a  n'eUever  aucune 
objection,  si,  a  la  suite  des  inconve'nients  pouvant  r£sulter  du 
maintien  de  1'administration  ottomane  dans  le  Sandjak  de 
Novi-Bazar,  1'Autriche-Hongrie  se  voyait  amende  a  occuper 
d£finitivement  ce  t£rritoire  comme  le  reste  de  la  Bosnie  et 
de  1'Herzegovine."  In  return  for  this  undertaking,  Austria- 
Hungary  promised  to  lend  Russia  diplomatic  support  in  re- 
moving any  obstacles  that  might  arise  to  the  execution  of  the 
provisions  of  the  Treaty  of  Berlin.  The  origin  of  the  secret 
Convention  is  still  mysterious.  Though  Russia  had  consented 
to  the  acquisition  of  Bosnia-Herzegovina  by  Austria-Hungary 
during  the  meeting  between  the  Tsar  and  the  Emperor 
Francis  Joseph  at  Reichstadt  in  1876  and  by  supplementary 
agreements  concluded  at  Budapest  on  January  15,  1877, 
and  ratified,  with  an  annexe,  at  Vienna  (March  18,  I877),1 
the  Russian  plenipotentiaries,  Gortchakoff  and  Shuvaloff, 
showed  themselves  at  the  Berlin  Congress  reluctant  to  sanction 
the  occupation  of  the  two  provinces,  and  yielded  only  to 
German  and  English  pressure.  The  original  Russian  idea 
seems  to  have  been  to  purchase  the  neutrality  of  Austria- 
Hungary  while  Russia  should  establish  her  own  hegemony 
in  the  Balkans  by  creating  out  of  Turkish  territory  a  big 
Slav  State — Bulgaria.  England  had,  on  June  6,  1878,  con- 
cluded with  Austria-Hungary  a  convention  providing  that  "  le 
gouvernement  de  Sa  Majest£  Britannique  s'engage  a  soutenir 
toute  proposition  concernant  la  Bosnie  que  le  gouvernement 
Austro-Hongrois  jugera  a  propos  de  faire  au  congres."2 
Though  the  revision  of  the  Treaty  of  San  Stefano  by  the 
Berlin  Congress  had  in  part  destroyed  the  Russian  scheme, 
Russia  finally  gave  way  in  regard  to  Bosnia- Herzegovina 
and  the  occupation  of  the  Sanjak  in  return  for  a  rectification 

1  Wie  -wir  zu  Bosnien  kamen :  eine  historische  Studie,  von  Dr.  August 
Foumier,  pp.  41,  43. 

3  Graf  Julius  Andrassy :  sein  Leben  und  seine  Zeit,  von  Eduard  Wer- 
theimer,  Band  iii.  p.  122. 


214  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

of  the  Montenegrin  frontier.  But  this  "compensation"  hardly 
explains  why  Russia  should  have  consented  to  the  "  defini- 
tive occupation "  of  the  Sanjak  "  like  the  rest  of  Bosnia- 
Herzegovina  "  by  the  secret  Convention  of  July  1 3  ;  nor  why 
Russia  should  ever  afterwards  have  offered  stubborn  resist- 
ance to  the  transformation  of  this  "  definitive  occupation  " 
into  an  annexation.  The  history  of  Austro-Russian  rela- 
tions on  the  subject  of  Bosnia-Herzegovina,  both  before  and 
after  the  Congress  of  Berlin,  is  still  obscure  despite  the 
contributions  made  to  it  by  the  Russian  State  Archivist, 
Gorjainoff,  in  his  book  The  Bosphorus  and  the  Dardanelles 
(1907),  and  authorized  Austrian  and  Hungarian  publications 
like  Professor  Fournier's  Wie  wir  zu  Bosnien  kamen  and 
Eduard  von  Wertheimer's  Andrdssy.  Since  the  abandon- 
ment of  the  Sanjak  by  Austria-Hungary  at  the  moment  of 
the  annexation  of  Bosnia- Herzegovina  in  October  1908,  the 
question  has  lost  much  of  its  practical  interest,  though  it  re- 
mains historically  important  as  an  episode  which,  like  Austrian 
"  ingratitude  "  towards  Russia  at  the  time  of  the  Crimean  War, 
continued  to  influence  the  relations  between  St  Petersburg 
and  Vienna  long  after  the  original  cause  of  ill-feeling  had 
disappeared. 

The  further  question  why  Andrassy  accepted  an  "occu- 
pation "  instead  of  an  annexation  is  more  easily  answered. 
Originally,  annexation  was  contemplated.  Annexation 
alone  corresponded  fully  to  the  ardent  desire  of  the 
Emperor  Francis  Joseph  to  make  up  for  the  loss  of 
Lombardy  and  Venetia  by  incorporating  in  his  dominions 
two  provinces  of  approximately  equal  extent.  The  per- 
sistence of  this  desire  was  one  of  the  main  reasons  why 
Baron  von  Aehrenthal,  thirty  years  later,  celebrated  the 
Emperor's  year  of  Diamond  Jubilee  by  transforming  the 
occupation  into  an  annexation.  Andrassy  was  induced  to 
abandon  the  idea  of  an  immediate  annexation  partly  by 
the  prospect  of  Turkish  resistance  (which  would  have  given 
Russia  an  opportunity  to  renew  hostilities  against  Turkey) 
and  partly  by  the  strength  of  Austrian-German  and  Magyar 


FOREIGN  POLICY  215 

opposition  to  the  incorporation  of  the  two  provinces  in 
the  territory  of  the  Monarchy.  As  at  the  moment  of  the 
annexation  of  1908,  neither  Austria  nor  Hungary  was 
prepared  to  sanction  the  acquisition  of  the  new  territory 
by  the  other  ;  and  Hungary,  jealous  of  her  constitutional 
independence,  deprecated  the  creation  of  an  Imperial  Reichs- 
land  that  might  become  an  additional  tie  between  her  and 
Austria  and  eventually  serve  as  the  starting-point  for  a 
system  of  federalization  which  would  diminish  the  relative 
importance  of  the  Magyars  in  the  Monarchy.  Both  ,the 
Austrian -Germans — then  paramount  in  Austria — and  the 
Magyars  objected,  moreover,  to  the  increase  of  the  Slav 
population  of  the  Monarchy  proper.  Hence  Andrassy  was 
fain  to  accept  the  formula  of  "  occupation  and  administra- 
tion," while  surrounding  it  with  guarantees  that  the  title 
of  the  Monarchy  to  definite  possession  could  not  well  be 
challenged  save  by  force  of  arms.  The  Administration  oi 
the  provinces  was  tacked  on  to  the  Austro- Hungarian 
Department  for  Joint  Finance,  and  the  head  of  the  Depart- 
ment, or  Joint  Finance  Minister,  was  made  responsible  not 
to  the  Austrian  or  Hungarian  Parliament  but  to  the  Joint 
Parliamentary  Delegations.  This  expedient  was  retained 
even  after  the  annexation  in  1908  and  the  granting  of 
constitutional  autonomy  to  Bosnia -Herzegovina  eighteen 
months  later.  The  inhabitants  of  Bosnia-Herzegovina  are 
still  without  a  properly  regulated  status  in  the  Monarchy. 
They  are  not  entitled  to  call  themselves  citizens  of  Austria  or 
Hungary.  They  are  fra  color  che  son  sospesi,  and  rank  at 
best  as  second-class  Hapsburgians.  The  end  of  the  question 
of  Bosnia-Herzegovina  is  not  yet.  It  has  become  an  integral 
part  of  the  Southern  Slav  question  and  can  hardly  be  settled 
save  in  the  connexion  with  the  larger  issue  whether  Austria- 
Hungary  will  be  able  to  solve  the  Southern  Slav  question  in 
her  own  favour  or  whether  it  will,  like  the  Italian  and  German 
questions  of  the  nineteenth  century,  be  decided  against  her. 
Upon  this  point  the  future  of  the  Monarchy  may  turn. 

The  Servian  writer  Ristitch,  in  his  Diplomatic  History  of 


216  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

Servia,  1875-78  (vol.  ii.  pp.  251-252),  relates,  on  the 
authority  of  Shuvaloff,  that  Bismarck  originally  suggested 
the  Austro- Hungarian  acquisition  of  Bosnia- Herzegovina. 
Though  Andrassy's  biographer,  Eduard  von  Wertheimer, 
deprecates  the  assumption  that  Bismarck  was  the  author  of 
the  idea  and  claims  that  Andrassy  had  long  recognized  the 
necessity  of  the  occupation,  it  is  extremely  probable  that  the 
German  Chancellor  encouraged  if  he  did  not  actually  propose 
the  expansion  of  the  Monarchy  in  the  Balkan  Peninsula. 
Just  as  he  subsequently  encouraged  France  to  occupy  Tunis  in 
order  to  divert  French  attention  from  the  Franco-German 
frontier  and  to  foment  discord  between  France  and  Italy,  so  it 
was  in  his  interest  to  turn  Austro-Hungarian  attention  to  the 
South-East  both  in  order  to  deflect  it  from  anti-German 
enterprises  and  to  bring  Austria-Hungary  into  potential 
conflict  with  Russia.  If  Russia  and  Austria-Hungary  were 
watching  each  other  with  jealous  suspicion,  each  would 
be  more  likely  to  cultivate  a  good  relationship  with  Germany 
in  the  hope  of  securing  German  neutrality  if  not  German 
support.  A  permanent  opportunity  for  "  honest  brokerage  " 
by  Germany  would  thus  be  created.  After  the  failure  of  the 
League  of  the  Three  Emperors,  Andrassy  and  Bismarck  were 
practically  agreed  upon  the  necessity  of  a  formal  alliance 
between  Austria-Hungary  and  Germany — Bismarck  in  order 
to  provide  against  the  contingency  of  a  Franco-Russian 
alliance  against  Germany  into  which  a  detached  Austria- 
Hungary  might  be  drawn,  and  Andrassy  in  order  to  obviate 
the  danger  of  a  single-handed  struggle  between  the  Monarchy 
and  Russia  in  which  Germany  might  play  the  part  not 
only  of  a  tertius  gaudens  but  eventually  of  a  claimant  to 
a  share  in  the  spoils.  Besides,  the  Austro-German  Alliance 
was  regarded  by  Andrassy  and  possibly  also  by  Bismarck 
as  a  guarantee  of  the  maintenance  of  the  Dual  System 
in  Austria-Hungary,  which  both  Andrassy  and  Bismarck 
regarded,  for  different  reasons,  as  a  safeguard  against  the 
triumph  of  anti-German  and  anti-Magyar  tendencies  in  the 
Monarchy.  Whether  the  Emperor  Francis  Joseph  regarded 


FOREIGN   POLICY  217 

the  Alliance  exactly  in  this  light  is  an  open  question,  which 
has  been  amply  discussed  in  a  previous  chapter.1  It  is  cer- 
tain that  the  anti-German  policy  adopted  by  the  Emperor 
in  Austria  during  the  Taaffe  era  (1879-93)  would  not  have 
been  possible  or  would  at  least  have  entailed  diplomatic  inter- 
vention by  Germany  had  not  Bismarck's  mind  been  set  at 
rest  on  the  score  of  Austrian  military  loyalty  by  the  existence 
of  the  Austro-German  Treaty.  Neither  the  Emperor  Francis 
Joseph  nor  Count  Kalnoky  (who  succeeded  Haymerle  at  the 
Vienna  Foreign  Office  in  1 88 1)  had  any  notion  that  Bismarck 
had  departed  far  more  explicitly  than  Austria-Hungary  from 
the  spirit  of  the  treaty  nor  that,  while  Austro-Russian  rivalry 
was  at  its  height  during  the  Bulgarian  troubles  of  the  'eighties, 
Bismarck  had  already  concluded  with  Russia  (1884)  the 
secret  Re- Insurance  Treaty  that  might  have  made  the  Austro- 
German  Treaty  inoperative  if  Austria-Hungary  and  Russia 
had  come  to  blows.2  Technically,  Bismarck  might  defend 

1  "  The  Monarch  and  the  Monarchy,"  pp.  26-28. 

2  The  historic  article  in  Bismarck's  organ,  the  Hamburger  Nachrichten  of 
October  24,  1896,  in  which  the  former  existence  of  a  re-insurance  treaty  with 
Russia  was  divulged,    ran  :  " .  .  .  Very   soon  after  the  change  of  throne   (in 
Russia,  by  the  accession  of  Alexander  III.)  and  the  retirement  of  Gortchakoff,  a 
good  understanding  was  established   between  German  and  Russian  policy  and 
remained  in  this  shape  until   1890.     Till  then  both  Empires  were  completely 
agreed  that,  should  one  of  them  be  attacked,  the  other  would  remain  benevolently 
neutral,  so  that  if,  for  instance,  Germany  were  attacked  by  France,  the  bene- 
volent neutrality  of  Russia  was  to  be  expected,  and  the  benevolent  neutrality 
of  Germany  if  Russia  were  attacked   without   provocation.     After  the   retire- 
ment of  Prince  Bismarck  (March   1890)  this  understanding  was  not   renewed, 
and  if  we  (the  Hamburger  Nachrichten  or,  rather,  Prince  Bismarck)  are  rightly 
informed  concerning  events  at   Berlin,  it   was  not   Russia,  ill-disposed  by  the 
retirement  of  Prince  Bismarck,  but  Count  Caprivi  (Prince  Bismarck's  successor) 
who  declined  to  continue  the  reciprocal  insurance,  although  Russia  was  prepared 
to  do  so.      Moreover,  if  the  Polonizing  era  simultaneously  inaugurated  (in  Prussia) 
is  taken  politically  into  account,  there  can  be  no  room  for  doubt  that  the  Russian 
Government  must  have  asked  itself  what  might  be  the  aims  of  this  Prussian 
Polonizing  that  stands  in  so  flagrant  contradiction  with  the  traditions  of  Emperor 
William  I." 

The  immediate  cause  of  the  publication  of  this  sensational  article  was  the 
visit  of  the  Tsar  and  Tsaritza  to  France  where,  after  the  review  at  Chalons 
on  October  9,  1896,  the  Tsar  had  assured  President  Faure  that  "a  deep  feeling 
of  brotherhood  in  arms "  existed  between  the  French  and  the  Russian  armies. 
Angered  by  this  proof  that  a  Franco- Russian  military  alliance  had  been  concluded 
and  that  his  successors,  Count  Caprivi  and  Prince  Hohenlohe,  had  failed  to 
prevent  it,  Prince  Bismarck  employed  his  Hamburg  organ  to  "  throw  a  stone 


2i 8  THE   HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

his  conduct  by  arguing  that  inasmuch  as  the  Austro- 
German  Treaty  provided  only  against  a  Russian  attack 
upon  either  of  the  two  parties  to  the  Alliance  while  the 
Russo- German  Treaty  of  Re -Insurance  provided  against 
an  unprovoked  attack  upon  Russia  by  Austria -Hungary 
or  any  other  country,  there  was  no  essential  contradic- 
tion between  the  obligations  which  Germany  had  assumed, 
inasmuch  as  the  Austro- German  Treaty  did  not  pledge 
Germany  to  support  Austria -Hungary  in  an  attack  upon 
Russia.  But  morally  it  is  impossible  to  resist  the  conclusion 
that  Bismarck  was  running  things  very  fine,  and  was,  as 
Baron  Marschall  von  Bieberstein  argued,  exposing  the  allied 
loyalty  of  Germany  to  the  chance  of  a  decision  as  to  which 
party  in  a  conflict  had  been  the  aggressor.  The  German 


into  the  duckpond."  Its  effect  was  prodigious.  For  weeks  the  European  press 
did  little  but  discuss  it.  The  German  Imperial  Gazette  accused  the  ex-Chancellor  of 
violating  secrets  of  State  and  of  exposing  the  allied  loyalty  of  Germany  to  question. 
Prince  Bismarck  replied  that  his  Treaty  of  Re-Insurance  with  Russia  was  perfectly 
compatible  with  the  Austro-German  Alliance,  and  claimed  that,  if  Russia  had  no 
objection,  the  whole  Triple  Alliance  in  corpore  would  do  well  to  contract  with 
Russia  a  similar  engagement.  But  the  late  Baron  Marschall  von  Bieberstein,  then 
German  Foreign  Secretary,  hit  the  nail  on  the  head  in  his  speech  to  the  Reichstag 
on  November  16,  1896,  by  saying,  "  In  our  treaty  of  1879  with  Austria- Hungary 
we  are  pledged  to  assist  the  Monarchy  with  our  whole  armed  strength  if  the 
Monarchy  is  attacked  by  Russia.  This  position  is  perfectly  clear.  But  if  the 
revelations  (of  the  Hamburger  Nachrichten)  are  accurate,  the  Re-Insurance  Treaty 
with  Russia  might  have  brought  us  into  the  position  of  being  asked — in  case  of 
an  Austro-Russian  conflict — for  benevolent  neutrality  by  the  one  party  and  for 
support  with  our  whole  armed  strength  by  the  other  party  ;  and  we  should  then 
have  had  to  decide  which  of  the  two  parties  was  the  aggressor." 

Scarcely  less  interesting  than  the  revelation  of  the  secret  Re-Insurance  Treaty 
was  Bismarck's  suggestion  that  the  pro-Polish  policy,  tentatively  adopted  by  the 
Emperor  William  II.  at  the  beginning  of  his  reign,  contributed  to  cause  Russia  to 
doubt  German  intentions.  Bismarck  always  made  the  oppression  of  the  Poles  an 
asset  in  his  policy  towards  Russia,  and  succeeded  unfortunately  in  hypnotizing 
Russia  into  a  belief  that  the  oppression  of  the  Poles  is  likewise  a  pre-eminent 
Russian  interest.  The  joint  oppression  of  Poland  thus  became,  and  has  remained, 
a  bond  of  union  between  Germany  and  Russia.  The  present  German  Emperor 
departed  for  a  moment  from  this  sinister  principle  but  subsequently  reverted  to  it 
and  sanctioned  Prince  Billow's  policy  of  expropriating  the  Prussian  Poles.  Germany 
thus  placed  in  the  hands  of  Russia  a  trump  card  which  the  Russian  Government 
has  hitherto  failed  to  use.  The  position  of  Russia  in  Europe  might  be  immensely 
strengthened  and  her  political  preponderance  over  Germany  and  Austria-Hungary 
assured  at  one  stroke  were  she  to  grant  her  Polish  subjects  a  measure  of  autonomy 
and  to  treat  them  as  fully  qualified  Russian  citizens. 


FOREIGN   POLICY  219 

Emperor  and  Count  Capri vi,  who  in  1 890  allowed  the 
Re- Insurance  Treaty  to  lapse  because  the  situation  it  created 
was  "  too  complicated,"  had  both  common  sense  and  right- 
mindedness  on  their  side.  Some  future  indiscretion  may 
perhaps  show  whether  the  German  Emperor  djd  not  sub- 
sequently change  his  mind  and  revert  in  practice,  if  not  by 
formal  Treaty,  to  the  re-insurance  policy  of  Bismarck. 

The  revelation  of  the  Re- Insurance  Treaty  by  Bismarck 
led  indirectly  to  a  new  era  in  Austro- Russian  relations. 
Though  unpleasantly  impressed  by  the  public  announcement 
of  the  potential  perfidy  of  Germany,  the  Austro-Hungarian 
Government  instructed  its  official  organs  to  dismiss  the  affair 
in  a  few  words  and  treat  it  as  a  phase  long  past.  The 
Fremdenblatt  approved  of  the  refusal  of  the  German  Govern- 
ment to  supplement  the  Bismarckian  revelations  by  divulging 
the  details  of  the  treaty.  Nevertheless  it  was  plain  that  the 
episode  had  inspired  Austria -Hungary  with  retrospective 
resentment,  and  when,  in  the  spring  of  the  following  year,  the 
Emperor  Francis  Joseph  returned  at  St.  Petersburg  the  visit 
of  accession  paid  to  him  at  Vienna  by  Nicholas  II.  in  August 
1896,  an  Austro-Russian  rapprochement  took  place  in  the 
form  of  an  agreement  in  regard  to  the  Balkans.  On  April 
29,  1897,  Counts  Gofuchowski  and  Muravieff,  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  and  Russian  Foreign  Ministers,  addressed  from 
St.  Petersburg  to  the  Austro-Hungarian  and  Russian  repre- 
sentatives in  Servia,  Bulgaria,  Rumania,  and  Montenegro, 
identic  notes  declaring  that  the  exchange  of  views  between 
the  Emperor  and  the  Tsar  had  given  the  two  sovereigns  an 
opportunity  of  recognizing  the  correct  attitude  of  those 
countries  during  the  Greco -Turkish  war,  an  attitude  the 
more  pleasing  in  that  the  Emperor  and  the  Tsar  were  firmly 
determined  to  maintain  the  general  peace,  the  principle  of 
order  and  the  status  quo.  In  the  following  autumn  Count 
Gotuchowski  informed  the  Delegations  that  a  basis  for  an 
Austro-Russian  agreement  had  been  found  and  that  the  "  two 
powers  principally  interested  in  the  Balkans  "  repudiated  all 
idea  of  conquest  and  were  determined  to  maintain  the  status 


220  THE   HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

quo.  In  reality  the  agreement  between  Austria -Hungary 
and  Russia  had  not  been  attained  quite  so  smoothly  as  these 
announcements  appeared  to  indicate.  During  the  conference 
at  St.  Petersburg  between  the  two  sovereigns  and  their  ad- 
visers, Count  Muravieff,  at  the  instance  of  the  Tsar,  sketched 
briefly  the  Balkan  policy  of  Russia,  which  was,  in  view  of 
Russian  activity  in  the  Far  East,  at  that  moment  emi- 
nently conservative.  Count  Gotuchowski  replied  on  be- 
half of  Austria -Hungary  with  a  brilliant  and  exhaustive 
statement,  in  the  course  of  which  he  advocated  the  annexa- 
tion of  Bosnia -Herzegovina  by  Austria- Hungary.  He 
presented  to  Count  Muravieff  a  memorandum  containing 
the  same  suggestion  which  was,  however,  struck  out  by 
the  Tsar  when  revising  the  memorandum  as  a  basis  for 
the  agreement.  Austria-Hungary  was  fain  to  accept  the 
agreement  on  these  terms  and  to  postpone  till  a  more  con- 
venient season  the  annexation  of  the  occupied  provinces. 

THE  FEBRUARY  AND  MURZSTEG  PROGRAMMES 

For  some  years  the  Austro- Russian  understanding  re- 
mained in  the  background  of  European  politics.  The  war 
of  1898  between  the  United  States  and  Spain  (in  regard  to 
which  Austria-Hungary  took  up  a  strongly  anti-American 
standpoint  and  advocated  collective  European  action  against 
the  United  States),  the  Boer  War,  the  Anglo-French  dispute 
that  ended  in  the  Fashoda  incident,  and  the  growing 
estrangement  between  England  and  Germany,  deflected 
public  attention  from  the  Balkans  and  turned  it  in  the 
direction  of  "  world-politics."  But,  towards  the  end  of  1902, 
unmistakable  signs  that  a  serious  insurrection  in  Macedonia 
was  at  hand  and  that  Bulgaria  and  Turkey  might  be  involved 
in  hostilities,  induced  Russia  to  take  up  the  question  of 
Macedonian  Reform.  Count  Lamsdorff,  who  had  succeeded 
Count  Muravieff  as  Russian  Foreign  Minister,  made  a  rapid 
journey  to  Sofia  and  Belgrade  in  December  1902,  and  went 
thence  to  discuss  the  outlook  with  Count  Gotuchowski  at 


FOREIGN   POLICY  221 

Vienna.  The  two  statesmen,  representing  the  two  "  most 
interested  "  Powers,  agreed  upon  a  scheme  of  reforms  for 
Macedonia  and  instructed  the  Russian  and  Austro- 
Hungarian  Ambassadors  at  Constantinople  to  draft  it  It 
was  transmitted  to  Vienna  and  St.  Petersburg  early  in 
February  1903  and  presented  to  the  Porte  on  February  21. 
Hence  its  designation  as  "  the  February  Programme."  It 
suggested,  in  the  name  of  Austria-Hungary  and  Russia,  the 
introduction  of  reforms  in  the  vilayets  of  Salonica,  Kossovo, 
and  Monastir ;  proposed  the  appointment,  for  a  term  of 
three  years,  of  a  Turkish  Inspector-General  with  the  rank 
of  Vizir  and  possessing  authority  over  the  Valis  or  provincial 
governors  ;  insisted  upon  the  engagement  of  foreign  officers 
to  reorganize  the  police  and  the  gendarmerie ;  and  urged 
the  necessity  of  financial  and  fiscal  reform.  Under  pressure 
from  all  the  Powers,  the  Porte  accepted  this  Programme 
and  appointed  Hussein  Hilmi  Pasha  to  be  Inspector-General. 
His,  mainly  bureaucratic,  activity  availed  nothing  to  prevent 
the  terrible  insurrection  of  the  summer  of  1903,  so  that, 
chiefly  in  response  to  English  public  opinion  firmly  voiced 
by  Lord  Lansdowne,  Counts  Gotuchowski  and  Lamsdorff  de- 
cided in  the  early  autumn  of  1903  to  amplify  and  render 
more  stringent  the  provisions  of  the  February  Programme. 
At  the  end  of  September  1903  the  Tsar,  accompanied  by 
Count  Lamsdorff,  visited  the  Emperor  Francis  Joseph  at 
Schonbrunn  and  went  thence  with  him  to  the  Emperor's 
shooting-box  at  Miirzsteg  in  Styria.  Here,  while  his 
Austro-Hungarian  colleague  was  out  with  the  guns,  Count 
Lamsdorff  drew  up  the  famous  Miirzsteg  Programme  which 
was  to  play  so  large  a  part  in  Balkan  affairs  during  the  next 
five  years.  An  English  proposal  for  a  more  drastic  series 
of  reforms  and  especially  for  greater  efficacy  of  control  than 
Austria-Hungary  and  Russia  appeared  to  desire,  reached  the 
Vienna  Foreign  Office  two  hours  after  Counts  Gotuchowski 
and  Lamsdorff  had  started  for  Miirzsteg.  Diplomatic  rumour 
assigned  their  departure  at  an  earlier  hour  than  originally 
contemplated  to  a  desire  to  avoid  the  English  proposal.  In 


222  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

any  case  Lord  Lansdowne's  suggestions  found  no  place  in 
the  Programme  communicated  to  the  Austro-Hungarian  and 
Russian  Ambassadors  at  Constantinople  in  the  form  of  identic 
instructions  dated  Miirzsteg,  October  2,  1903.  The  chief 
points  of  this  Programme  were  the  appointment  of  Austro- 
Hungarian  and  Russian  Civil  Agents  attached  to  the  person 
of  the  Inspector- General,  Hilmi  Pasha,  whom  the  Civil 
Agents  were  to  accompany  on  all  his  journeys  of  inspec- 
tion, with  authority  to  report  to  the  Austro-Hungarian  and 
Russian  Ambassadors  at  Constantinople  and  also  directly  to 
their  Governments.  Since  the  task  of  the  Civil  Agents  would 
be  to  watch  over  the  introduction  of  the  reforms  and  the 
pacification  of  the  inhabitants,  the  Programme  specified  that 
their  mandate  would  expire  two  years  after  their  appointment. 
The  Programme  further  proposed  that  a  foreign  General 
should  enter  the  service  of  the  Ottoman  Government  to  re- 
organize the  Gendarmerie  with  the  help  of  assistants  chosen 
among  the  officers  of  the  Great  Powers.  The  third  clause 
of  the  Programme  provided  that  after  the  pacification  of 
the  country,  the  Ottoman  Government  should  be  requested 
to  modify  the  territorial  delimitation  of  the  Turkish  ad- 
ministrative districts,  in  view  of  a  more  regular  grouping  of 
the  various  Macedonian  races.1  The  fourth  clause  of  the 
Programme  demanded  the  reorganization  of  the  Turkish 
administrative  and  judicial  system  in  such  a  manner  as  to 
favour  the  admission  of  native  Christians  and  to  develop 
local  autonomies.  In  conclusion,  the  Programme  proposed 

1  This  clause  of  the  Miirzsteg  Programme  gave  the  signal  for  a  ferocious  war 
of  all  against  all  in  Macedonia,  especially  between  Greeks  and  Bulgars.  Armed 
Greek  bands  sought  to  exterminate  the  Bulgar  inhabitants  of  various  mixed 
districts  and  -vice  versa,  in  order  that,  when  the  "  more  regular  grouping  "  of  the 
different  races  should  take  place,  these  districts  should  appear  to  be  purely  Greek 
or  purely  Bulgar.  After  some  years  of  atrocious  butchery  which  the  Turkish 
authorities  encouraged  and  which  the  European  Gendarmerie  Officers  were 
powerless  to  prevent,  the  Powers  decided  to  abrogate  Clause  III.  of  the  Programme 
and  to  warn  the  Balkan  States  and  races  that  no  account  would  be  taken  of 
districts  thus  "  conquered "  in  an  eventual  change  of  Turkish  administrative 
delimitation.  The  abrogation  of  the  clause  was  decided  upon,  subject  to  the 
approval  of  Russia,  at  an  interview  between  Baron  von  Aehrenthal  and  Viscount 
(then  Sir  Charles)  Hardinge  at  Ischl  in  August  1907  ;  but  the  credit  for 


FOREIGN  POLICY  223 

the  formation  of  mixed  Musulman  and  Christian  Commissions 
under  the  surveillance  of  the  Austro-Hungarian  and  Russian 
Consuls  to  investigate  political  crimes  and  to  repair  the 
havoc  wrought  by  the  insurrection  ;  and  insisted  that  the 
Ottoman  Government  should  again  pledge  itself  to  introduce 
the  reforms  specified  by  the  February  Programme. 

Adopted  by  the  Porte  under  pressure  from  the  Powers, 
the  Murzsteg  Programme  gradually  led  to  a  substantial  im- 
provement of  the  situation  in  Macedonia.  Austro-Hungarian 
and  Russian  Civil  Agents  were  appointed.  An  Italian 
General  was  chosen  as  Instructor-in-Chief  (but  without 
command)  of  the  reformed  Gendarmerie.  Macedonia  was 
divided  into  five  sectors,  each  of  which  was  allotted  to  the 
officers  of  a  Great  Power.1  Germany  held  aloof  from  the 
work  of  Gendarmerie  reform,  though  she  was  represented  by 
a  Consul  on  the  International  Commission  formed  at  Salonica 
for  the  control  of  Macedonian  finance.  This  commission 
did  excellent  work  and  began  to  evolve  order  out  of 
chaos.  Lord  Lansdowne,  whose  firmness  in  promoting  the 
reforms  deserves  unstinted  praise,  had  striven  from  the 
outset  to  internationalize  the  work  both  in  order  to  increase 
its  efficiency  and  to  allay  Turkish  apprehensions  that 
Rumelia  would  become  a  politico-administrative  preserve  of 
Austria-Hungary  and  Russia.  The  internationalization  of 
the  reform  of  the  Gendarmerie  and  of  the  financial  control 
was  largely  the  result  of  his  efforts,  which  were  supported 
by  Italy  and,  after  the  Anglo-French  Agreement  of  April 
1904,  by  France.  The  Austro-Hungarian  Foreign  Minister, 
Count  Goiuchowski,  was  obliged  reluctantly  to  admit  that  the 
mandate  of  the  Austro-Hungarian  and  Russian  Civil  Agents 

directing  the  attention  of  Europe  to  the  sanguinary  effects  of  the  clause  is  due 
chiefly  to  Sir  (then  Mr.)  Henry  Paul  Harvey,  late  Financial  Adviser  to  the 
Egyptian  Government  and  at  that  time  British  representative  on  the  International 
Commission  at  Salonica  for  the  Control  of  Macedonian  Finance.  Accompanied 
by  Lady  Grogan,  who  had  undergone  much  hardship  in  relieving  the  sufferings 
of  the  Macedonian  population,  Mr.  Harvey  rode  through  the  disputed  districts, 
collected  evidence  and  laid  it  before  the  British  Foreign  Office. 

1  The  Kossovo  sector  was  assigned  to  Austria-Hungary,  that  of  Monastir  to 
Italy,  Salonica  to  Russia,  Drama  to  Great  Britain,  and  Seres  to  France. 


224  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

had  been  limited  by  the  Murzsteg  Programme  to  a  period  of 
two  years  and  required  the  express  consent  of  Europe  for 
its  renewal.  The  principle  of  all-round  internationalization 
came  to  be  increasingly  accepted,  and  when,  after  the  end  of 
the  Russo-Japanese  War,  Russia  adopted  a  more  liberal  in- 
ternal policy  and  turned  her  eyes  again  towards  Europe 
and  the  Balkans,  Russian  opposition  also  ceased.  This 
gradual  transformation  of  the  Austro-Russian  Agreement  of 
1897  and  of  its  products,  the  February  and  Murzsteg  Pro- 
grammes, into  a  thoroughly  international  system  of  reform  and 
control  in  Macedonia,  was  one  of  the  most  important  features 
of  the  European  situation  during  the  years  1905—7.  From 
the  continued  resistance  of  Austria-Hungary  to  the  process  of 
internationalization  proceeded  the  breach  of  the  Austro- 
Russian  Agreement  of  1 897  and  its  consequences  in  the  form 
of  the  Austro-Russian  rivalry  that  persisted  throughout  the 
years  1908-12  and  assumed  so  threatening  a  form  during 
the  crisis  of  last  winter. 

THE  ANNEXATION  CRISIS 

When,  in  1903,  Russia  and  Austria -Hungary  agreed 
upon  the  February  and  Murzsteg  Programmes,  they  were 
doubtless  inspired  to  some  extent  by  solicitude  for  the 
welfare  of  the  Balkan  Christians,  but  were  also,  and  per- 
haps principally,  anxious  to  preserve  their  political  influence 
in  the  Balkans.  The  name  "  Murzsteg  "  has  often  been  used 
as  a  catchword  to  denote  a  policy  of  agreement  between 
Austria-Hungary  and  Russia  for  the  moral  if  not  the  actual 
partition  of  the  Balkans.  Nothing  has  transpired  entirely 
to  substantiate  this  view,  at  least  as  far  as  Russia  is  con- 
cerned, though  in  the  case  of  Austria-Hungary  there  may 
have  been  the  arriere-pensee  that,  by  engaging  jointly  with 
Russia  in  the  work  of  reform,  the  Monarchy  would  be  peg- 
ging out  for  itself  a  future  sphere  of  influence  in  such 
manner  as  to  keep  open  the  road  to  Salonica.  Russia, 
then  engaged  in  a  diplomatic,  and  on  the  eve  of  an  armed 


FOREIGN  POLICY  225 

struggle  with  Japan,  desired,  by  agreement  with  Austria- 
Hungary,  to  prevent  the  single-handed  intervention  of  the 
Monarchy  in  the  Balkans,  while  not  appearing  to  neglect 
the  cause  of  the  Balkan  Christians.  The  Macedonian 
Reforms  were  therefore  designed  by  Russia  to  improve  the 
lot  of  the  Balkan  Christians  while  guaranteeing  them  and 
Russia  against  the  expansive  tendencies  of  Austria- Hungary. 
Count  Gofuchowski,  the  Austro- Hungarian  Foreign  Minister, 
was  much  criticized  in  Austrian  Imperialist  circles  for  not 
taking  advantage  of  Russian  embarrassments  in  the  Far  East 
and  of  the  revolutionary  movement  that  accompanied  and 
followed  the  Russo-Japanese  War,  to  intervene  in  the  Balkans, 
annex  Bosnia-Herzegovina,  establish  a  firm  hold  over  Servia 
and  make  the  Hapsburg  Monarchy  politically  mistress  of 
the  Morava  and  Vardar  valleys.  But  Count  Gotuchowski, 
though  not  a  genius,  was  a  statesman  of  upright  mind 
and  endowed  with  a  large  measure  of  common  sense.  The 
idea  of  playing  false  to  Russia  was  repugnant  to  him.  He 
felt,  moreover,  that  to  force  on  a  Balkan  crisis  by  single- 
handed  intervention  would  be  to  incur  risks  which  the 
Monarchy  might  not  be  able  to  face.  From  1903  to  1906 
both  Austria  and  Hungary  were  involved  in  severe  internal 
crises.  In  Austria,  parliamentary  government  had  practi- 
cally ceased  to  exist  and  with  it  the  constitutional  possibility 
of  raising  money  for  extraordinary  military  purposes.  In 
Hungary,  Parliament  was  in  revolt  against  the  Crown  and 
not  disposed  to  sanction  even  a  modest  increase  of  the 
Army.  The  idea  that  the  Monarchy  might  escape  from  its 
internal  embarrassments  by  a  policy  of  foreign  adventure 
was  indeed  ventilated  by  some  advisers  of  the  Crown  but 
neither  the  Emperor  nor  Count  Goiuchowski  gave  it  serious 
consideration.  Besides,  the  German  conflict  with  France  and 
England  over  Morocco — the  German  Emperor's  provocative 
visit  to  Tangier  (March  31,  1905)  took  place  within  a  month 
of  the  defeat  of  Russia  at  Mukden  (February  24  to  March 
10,  1905) — caused  Germany  to  deprecate  any  Austro- 
Hungarian  action  which,  while  endangering  German  interests 

Q 


226  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

in  the  Near  East,  might  diminish  the  efficacy  of  the  support 
which  the  Monarchy  could  give  to  Germany  in  case  of  Euro- 
pean complications.  In  other  words  Germany  was  prepared 
to  take  advantage  of  Russia's  weakness  on  her  own  account 
but  would  have  looked  askance  at  any  Austro-Hungarian 
attempt  to  follow  her  example.  In  these  circumstances 
Count  Goiuchowski  wisely  adhered  to  the  principle  quieta 
non  movere  and  co-operated  steadily,  though  perhaps  without 
enthusiasm,  in  the  work  of  Macedonian  Reform  ;  but  he  was 
careful  to  remind  Germany,  through  his  organs  in  the  press, 
that  the  casus  foederis  could  not  arise  for  the  Triple  Alliance 
in  connexion  with  transmarine  questions,  and  that,  should 
Germany  become  involved  in  a  conflict  with  England  and 
France  over  Morocco,  Austria-Hungary  would  not  be  bound 
to  lend  her  armed  support.  Simultaneously  he  began  to 
work  for  the  improvement  of  Austro-Hungarian  relations 
with  Italy — then  ranged  alongside  of  the  Mediterranean 
Powers  against  German  pretensions  in  the  Morocco  question 
— and  ratified,  during  meetings  with  the  Italian  Foreign 
Minister  at  Abbazia  (1905)  and  Venice  (1906),  the  Austro- 
Italian  Agreement  in  regard  to  Albania,  which  he  had  con- 
cluded verbally  with  the  Marquis  Visconti  Venosta  in  1897 
and  by  an  exchange  of  notes  in  1900.  Germany,  whose 
reading  of  the  Triple  Alliance  has  usually  been  that  close 
and  direct  relations  between  Vienna  and  Rome  are  undesir- 
able, inasmuch  as  they  diminish  the  power  of  Germany  over 
her  allies  and  tend  to  give  unnecessary  independence  to 
Austria-Hungary  and  Italy,  watched  these  tendencies  with 
disfavour ;  and  despite  the  help  loyally  given  by  Count 
Gotuchowski  to  Germany  at  the  Conference  at  Algeciras  in 
the  spring  of  1906,  the  German  Emperor  dealt  him  a  blow 
that  went  far  to  render  his  position  untenable.  By  way  of 
marking  his  displeasure  at  the  Francophil  attitude  of  Italy 
during  the  Conference  of  Algeciras,  the  Emperor  William 
addressed  to  Count  Gotuchowski  a  telegram  praising  his 
action  during  the  Algeciras  Conference  as  that  of  a  "  brilliant 
second  on  the  duelling-ground."  The  telegram  was  published 


FOREIGN  POLICY  227 

—whether  spontaneously  or  not  is  unknown.  Contempo- 
rary diplomatic  rumour  pretended  that  the  publication  had 
been  asked  for  by  the  German  Ambassador  in  Vienna 
who  was  alleged  to  have  expressed  astonishment  that  the 
Austro-Hungarian  Foreign  Minister  should  not  have  made 
known  to  the  world  so  "  flattering  "  a  testimonial.  In  any 
case,  the  suggestion  that  Austria -Hungary  was  a  mere 
"second"  to  Germany  wounded  Austro-Hungarian  pride; 
and  when,  in  the  following  autumn,  difficulties  arose  between 
the  Hungarian  Government  and  Count  Gotuchowski,  the 
latter  took  occasion  to  withdraw  from  office.  In  him  the 
Emperor  Francis  Joseph  lost  a  faithful  servant  and  the 
Monarchy  a  statesman  whose  qualities  his  fellow  country- 
men have  since  learned  to  appreciate  at  their  true  value. 

Baron  von  Aehrenthal,  the  Austro-Hungarian  Ambas- 
sador at  St.  Petersburg,  who  succeeded  Count  Gotuchowski 
at  the  Vienna  Foreign  Office,  was  a  man  of  a  very  different 
stamp.  Gofuchowski  had  been  jovial,  loquacious,  light- 
living  but  withal  a  diplomatist  whose  word  was  his  bond, 
and  in  whom  no  ambassador  had  ever  detected  the  shadow 
of  deceit.  Aehrenthal  was  a  Bohemian -German  with  a 
strain  of  Jewish  blood  who  had  been  brought  up  in  the 
Clerical  and  bureaucratic  school  of  Kalnoky.  A  man  of 
few  words,  to  each  of  which  he  gave  a  special  meaning — 
a  meaning  not  always  identical  with  that  understood  or 
intended  to  be  understood — secretive,  ambitious  and  hard- 
working, he  brought  with  him  to  the  Ballplatz  new  methods 
and  a  new  spirit.  Ambassadors  who  had  welcomed  his 
appointment  as  that  of  a  diplomatist  with  whom  it  would 
be  easier  to  transact  serious  business  than  with  the 
genial,  society  -  loving  Goluchowski,  complained  within 
a  few  months  that  Aehrenthal  "  avait  e"tabli  autour  du 
Ballplatz  une  e"paisse  atmosphere  de  mauvaise  foi."  He  came 
from  St.  Petersburg  with  a  reputation  for  Russophilism — a 
reputation  valuable  to  a  diplomatist  on  the  Neva,  embar- 
rassing to  a  statesman  on  the  Danube.  Before  he  had  been 
a  year  in  office  he  was  accused  of  servility  towards  Germany 


228  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

— an  accusation  not  damaging  to  a  Minister  whose  position 
could  not  have  been  consolidated  without  the  good-will  of 
Berlin.  Whether  he  was  ever  sincerely  Russophil  may  be 
doubted.  A  shrewd  English  observer  who  knew  him  well 
at  St.  Petersburg  averred  that,  in  his  heart  of  hearts,  Aehren- 
thal  despised  the  Russians.  His  friends  in  Russia  belonged 
to  a  small  coterie  of  ultra-conservative  Grand  Dukes  and 
politicians  whose  ideas  on  Russia  and  on  the  principles  of 
government  were  in  harmony  with  his  own.  He  surveyed 
European  politics  from  a  Russian  reactionary  angle  of  vision, 
distrusting  Liberal  States  and  constitutional  tendencies.  To- 
wards England  his  original  attitude  was  one  of  distrustful 
contempt  qualified  by  ignorance.  Germany  he  respected 
for  her  attachment  to  Realpolitik,  her  indifference  towards 
ethical  considerations  and  her  readiness  to  employ  any 
means  for  the  attainment  of  her  ends.  His  programme  was 
to  resuscitate  the  old  League  of  the  Three  Emperors  for 
the  defence  of  conservative  and  monarchical  principles — but 
with  its  pivot  at  Vienna,  not  at  Berlin.  By  this  means 
he  hoped  to  restore  to  the  Hapsburg  Monarchy  a  greater 
measure  of  diplomatic  independence  than  it  had  enjoyed 
since  the  conclusion  of  the  Austro-German  Alliance  and  to 
make  Germany  and  Russia  by  turns  serve  Hapsburg  pur- 
poses. Within  the  limits  of  his  conception  of  Hapsburg 
interests,  Aehrenthal  was  an  ardent  patriot  who  brought  to 
the  service  of  his  patriotism  a  cool  head  and  a  statesmanlike 
fibre  of  which  the  value  was  diminished  only  by  inexperience 
and  by  a  resentful  and  sometimes  ungovernable  temper. 
His  readiness  to  trade  upon  the  good  faith  of  others  was  in 
no  respect  due  to  moral  cowardice  ;  and  his  tenacity  in  the 
pursuit  of  his  aims  would  have  ensured  him  greater  success 
than  he  achieved  had  it  not  been  accompanied  by  mental 
inelasticity  and  by  reluctance  to  tack  as  rapidly  as  changes 
of  wind  and  current  might  require.  Experience  and  ad- 
versity matured  his  judgment;  and  by  his  death  in  1911 
the  Monarchy,  which  had  paid  and  is  paying  heavily  for  his 
education  in  practical  statecraft,  was  deprived  of  his  services 


FOREIGN  POLICY  229 

at  the  moment  when  they  would  have  been  most  valuable. 
The  figure  of  Aehrenthal  is  not  devoid  of  a  certain  tragic 
grandeur  and  the  mark  he  left  on  the  Monarchy  is,  for 
good  or  evil,  indelible. 

On  succeeding  Count  Gotuchowski  in  October  1906, 
Aehrenthal's  immediate  intention  was  to  revive  the  closer 
and  more  exclusive  co-operation  with  Russia  that  had 
marked  the  beginning  of  the  Austro-Russian  understanding 
of  1897  and,  up  to  1906,  the  execution  of  the  February 
and  Miirzsteg  Programmes.  The  British  tendency  towards 
the  complete  internationalization  of  the  work  of  Macedonian 
Reform  appeared  to  him  reprehensible  both  in  itself  and 
because  it  implied  a  readiness  on  the  part  of  Russia  to  fall 
into  line  with  the  Western  Powers  and  to  accept  their 
Liberal  standpoint.  The  greater  part  of  the  Miirzsteg  Pro- 
gramme had  already  been  executed.  The  Administrative 
and  especially  the  Judicial  Reforms  contemplated  by  Clause 
IV.  of  the  Programme  alone  awaited  definition  and  applica- 
tion. Aehrenthal  wished  the  Judicial  Reform  to  be  organized 
on  an  Austro-Russian  as  distinguished  from  the  all-round 
international  basis  that  had  been  adopted  for  the  Financial 
Reform.  M.  Isvolsky,  the  new  Russian  Minister  for  Foreign 
Affairs,  decided,  however,  towards  Christmas  1906  to  admit 
the  internationalization  of  the  Judicial  Reform  and  thus 
confirmed  Aehrenthal's  suspicion  that  Russia  was  drawing 
closer  to  England.  Within  a  few  days  of  receiving  the 
Russian  intimation,  Aehrenthal  conceived  and  discussed 
with  intimate  friends  the  policy,  which  he  executed  a 
twelvemonth  later,  of  abandoning  the  Austro-Russian  Agree- 
ment of  1897  and  of  ceasing  to  support  the  work  of 
Macedonian  Reform  in  return  for  a  concession  from  Turkey 
for  the  construction  of  an  Austro- Hungarian  railway  through 
the  Sanjak  of  Novi  Bazar  from  the  Bosnian  frontier  terminus 
at  Uvatz  to  the  Turkish  railhead  at  Mitrovitza.  Nevertheless 
he  did  not  at  once  abandon  all  idea  of  co-operation  with 
Russia  on  another  basis,  nor  of  preventing  the  Anglo-Russian 
entente  which  he  apprehended  as  an  obstacle  to  his  scheme 


230  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

of  reviving  the  Three  Emperors'  League.  In  the  spring  of 
1907,  after  a  visit  to  Prince  Billow  at  Berlin,  Aehrenthal 
made  to  M.  Isvolsky  a  proposal  of  which  the  details  have 
never  been  divulged,  though  its  general  character  is  known 
to  several  European  governments.  It  was  to  the  effect  that 
the  Austro- Russian  understanding  of  1 897  should  be  enlarged 
so  as  to  include  Germany  on  the  one  hand  and  France  on 
the  other.  The  basis  of  this  entente  a  quatre  was  to  be  a 
scheme  of  "  compensations  "  all  round,  including,  probably, 
the  annexation  of  Bosnia- Herzegovina  for  Austria-Hungary, 
the  opening  of  the  Dardanelles  for  Russia,  the  diplomatic 
and  financial  support  of  France  for  Germany  in  the  Baghdad 
Railway  question  and  a  benevolent  attitude  on  the  part  of 
Germany  towards  French  policy  in  Morocco.  In  what 
form  these  proposals  were  made  is  not  precisely  known, 
but  it  is  known  beyond  possibility  of  denial  that  M.  Isvolsky 
declined  Aehrenthal's  suggestion  for  an  entente  a  quatre 
early  in  May  1907.  The  Russian  Foreign  Minister  doubt- 
less felt  that  the  proposals  were  meant  to  be  a  master-stroke 
of  Austro-German  diplomacy  but  that  it  was  not  quite  clear 
whether  Russia  and  France  would  secure  commensurate 
advantages.  The  opening  of  the  Dardanelles  did  not 
depend  upon  Austria- Hungary  alone,  and  the  withdrawal 
of  Austro-Hungarian  opposition  would  still  have  left  Russia 
face  to  face  with  England  and  other  Powers.  True,  the 
object  of  estranging  Russia  from  England  might  have  been 
attained  and,  in  the  meantime,  Austria-Hungary  would 
have  secured  Russian  consent  to  the  annexation  of  Bosnia- 
Herzegovina.  Similarly,  a  Franco-German  "  deal  "  in  re- 
gard to  the  Baghdad  Railway  would  have  given  Germany 
an  immediate  and  France  a  merely  prospective  advantage. 
The  main  object  of  the  proposals  was  naturally  to  break 
up  the  Anglo-French  entente  and  to  thwart  the  growing 
rapprochement  between  England  and  Russia  or,  in  other 
words,  to  prevent  the  formation  of  the  Triple  Entente 
which  Aehrenthal  and  Germany  alike  regarded  as  a 
serious  danger.  M.  Isvolsky  was  too  Liberal  in  his  views 


FOREIGN   POLICY  231 

and  too  convinced  that  Russian  disasters  had  been,  at 
least  indirectly,  due  to  the  German  influences  which  had 
encouraged  Russia  to  turn  her  eyes  away  from  Europe,  to 
welcome  suggestions  of  which  the  ultimate  effect  would 
have  been  to  bring  Russia  once  again  under  German 
influence  and  to  perpetuate  the  conflict  between  Russia 
and  England.  England  had  given  Russia  sufficient  proofs 
of  good  faith  during  1903,  the  year  preceding  the  Russo- 
Japanese  War,  to  convince  Russian  statesmen  that  there  was 
no  truth  in  the  German  thesis  that  England  had  promoted 
the  war  in  order  to  weaken  Russia.  While  Germany  had 
persistently  supported  the  Russian  view  that  Japan  was 
bluffing  and  would  "  climb  down "  at  the  last  moment  if 
Russia  remained  firm — private  letters  from  Prince  Billow 
maintained  this  view  as  late  as  January  1904 — England 
had  used  diplomatic  and  private  influence  to  convince 
Russia  that  Japan  had  her  teeth  set  and  to  persuade  the 
Russian  Government  to  avoid  war  by  a  friendly  settlement. 
The  Russian  Government,  suspecting  that  England  was 
acting  only  as  diplomatic  "  second  "  to  her  ally,  Japan,  paid 
no  heed  to  these  warnings  and  advice,  which  were  never- 
theless renewed  with  insistence  before  hostilities  became 
inevitable.  Not  only  did  England  not  promote  the  war 
in  the  Far  East  but  she  did  her  utmost  to  ward  it  off,  if 
only  out  of  fear  that  she  herself  might  be  drawn  into  it. 
Nevertheless,  the  thesis  that  Japan  would  give  way  at  the 
last  moment  triumphed  at  St.  Petersburg  over  the  British 
thesis  that  Japan  was  in  deadly  earnest ;  and  when  war 
broke  out  at  the  beginning  of  February  1 904,  King  Edward 
and  Lord  Lansdowne  were  able  with  a  clear  conscience  to 
seek  ways  and  means  of  localizing  a  conflict  they  had  striven 
to  prevent 

These  ways  and  means  led  within  three  months  to  the 
Entente  Cordiale  between  England  and  France.  France  had 
replied  to  the  Anglo-Japanese  Alliance  of  1902  by  concluding 
with  Russia  a  Convention  that  practically  extended  the  Dual 
Alliance  to  the  Far  East  Since  France,  like  England,  had 


232  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

vainly  used  her  influence  at  St.  Petersburg  to  prevent  the 
Russo-Japanese  War,  it  was  clearly  to  the  interest  of  both 
countries  not  to  be  drawn  into  hostilities  in  spite  of  them- 
selves. They  therefore  "  paired "  and  neutralized  each 
other.  This  negative  agreement  might  not  have  been 
practicable  but  for  the  success  of  King  Edward's  first  visit 
to  Paris  in  May  1903.  From  the  moment  of  his  accession, 
King  Edward  had  worked  to  promote  more  cordial  relations 
between  England  and  France,  not  only  out  of  a  sincere 
liking  for  France  but  from  recognition  of  the  dangers  to 
which  England  had  been  and  might  again  be  exposed  by 
Lord  Salisbury's  policy  of  "  splendid  isolation."  The  South 
African  War  had  revealed  the  shortsightedness  or  rather  the 
over-longsightedness  of  that  policy  which  kept  the  gaze  of 
England  fixed  upon  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth  and  led 
her  to  overlook  stumbling-blocks  and  pitfalls  at  her  very 
threshold.  At  the  darkest  moment  of  the  South  African 
War  a  proposal  had  been  made  to  revive  against  England 
the  Franco-Russo-German  Coalition  that  had  been  directed 
against  Japan  after  the  Treaty  of  Shimonoseki.  France 
and  Russia  had  declined  the  suggestion  but  the  lesson  was 
not  lost  upon  King  Edward,  then  Prince  of  Wales,  who 
determined,  on  ascending  the  throne,  that  England  should 
not  again  be  exposed  to  such  a  danger.  He  therefore 
sought  to  improve  relations  with  France  and  at  the  same 
time  to  render  Russia  a  service  by  preventing  the  war  in 
the  Far  East.  In  the  latter  respect  he  failed  but  his  failure 
actually  gave  England  an  opportunity  of  arranging  with 
France  to  "  contract  out "  of  the  Russo-Japanese  struggle 
and  of  concluding,  three  months  later,  a  more  positive 
convention  in  the  form  of  the  Anglo-French  Agreement  of 
April  8,  1904  concerning  Egypt  and  Morocco. 

The  conclusion  of  the  Russo-Japanese  War  by  the 
Treaty  of  Portsmouth  and  the  growing  tendency  of  Russia 
towards  constitutional  reform  naturally  led  to  an  improve- 
ment in  Anglo -Russian  relations.  Confidence  in  British 
good  faith,  the  first  condition  of  such  an  improvement,  had 


FOREIGN  POLICY  233 

been  steadily  growing  in  influential  Russian  circles  ;  and  some 
Russian  diplomatists  formerly  Anglophobe,  like  the  late  M. 
Zinovieff,  Russian  Ambassador  at  Constantinople,  had  dis- 
carded their  prejudices  and  become  frankly  Anglophil.  These 
developments  were  highly  displeasing  to  the  German  and 
Austro- Hungarian  Governments.  Germany,  not  unnaturally, 
placed  an  "  objective "  construction  upon  King  Edward's 
"  subjective  "  desire  to  remove  points  of  friction  between 
England  and  her  Continental  rivals,  and  accused  England 
of  aiming  at  the  encirclement  and  isolation  of  Germany. 
Austria -Hungary,  or  rather  Aehrenthal,  descried  in  the 
Anglo-Russian  rapprochement  an  obstacle  to  his  scheme  of 
reviving  the  Three  Emperors'  League  and  a  tendency 
dangerous  to  Austro -Hungarian  policy  in  the  Balkans. 
Since  the  days  of  Andrassy  the  Vienna  Foreign  Office  had 
based  its  dealings  with  England  upon  the  principle  that 
British  antagonism  to  Russia  strengthened  the  position  of 
the  Monarchy  as  the  rival  of  Russia  in  the  Near  East  ; 
and  upon  the  consideration  once  defined  by  Andrassy  in 
conversation  with  a  British  Ambassador  at  Vienna  in  the 
phrase  that,  in  case  of  an  Anglo-Russian  conflict,  "  Austria- 
Hungary  could  apply  a  strong  mustard  plaster  to  the  back 
of  Russia."1  Unlike  Andrassy,  Aehrenthal  was  Anglophobe 
or,  at  least,  very  contemptuous  of  British  power  in  Europe. 
"  What  can  England  do  to  us  ? "  he  asked  repeatedly  of 
visitors  who  warned  him  during  the  Annexation  Crisis  not 
to  ignore  British  influence  in  the  Near  East.  Nevertheless 
the  possibility  that  Russia  might  come  to  an  agreement  with 
England  seriously  disturbed  his  calculations  and  led  him 
in  the  spring  of  1907  repeatedly  to  complain  to  Prince 
Urussoff,  the  Russian  Ambassador  at  Vienna,  of  the  Anglo- 
phil tendencies  of  the  Russian  Ambassador  at  Constantinople. 
M.  Isvolsky's  rejection  of  the  Blilow-Aehrenthal  proposal  in 
May  1907,  for  an  Austro -Russo- Franco -German  entente 
caused  Aehrenthal  to  suspect  that  Russia  was  on  the  eve 
of  succumbing  to  British  blandishments  and,  after  the  con- 

1  Wertheimer,  Graf  Julius  Andrdssy,  Band  ii.  p.  17. 


234  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

firmation  of  his  suspicions  by  the  publication  of  the  Anglo- 
Russian  Convention  of  August  31,  1907,  he  matured  the 
plan  which  five  months  later  brought  about  the  first  open 
breach  between  Vienna  and  St.  Petersburg. 

Rumours  that  Aehrenthal  was  contemplating  the  aban- 
donment of  the  Miirzsteg  basis  were  current  in  Vienna  during 
the  spring  and  summer  of  1907.  They  arose  chiefly  from 
the  pessimistic  language  employed  by  Aehrenthal  himself 
in  regard  to  the  condition  of  Macedonia  and  the  prospects 
of  the  Judicial  Reform  in  conversation  with  diplomatic  and 
other  personages.  It  was  further  rumoured  that  the  Arch- 
duke Francis  Ferdinand,  the  Austro  -  Hungarian  Heir- 
Apparent,  had,  in  conjunction  with  the  Chief  of  General 
Staff,  begun  to  study  the  question  of  a  railway  through  the 
Sanjak  of  Novi  Bazar.  Aehrenthal  feigned,  however,  to 
be  interested  in  the  completion  of  the  work  of  Reform  in 
Macedonia,  and  actually  drafted  the  Judicial  Reform  jointly 
with  M.  Isvolsky  during  the  latter's  visit  to  Vienna  in 
September— October  1907.  M.  Isvolsky  considered  that  the 
joint  authorship  of  the  Reform  placed  its  authors  under  an 
obligation  to  support  it  at  Constantinople  and  to  insist  upon 
its  application.  Aehrenthal  thought  that  the  Reform  might 
be  made  an  object  of  barter  with  Turkey.  Having  agreed 
with  Aehrenthal  that  the  draft  Reform  should  be  submitted 
to  a  Conference  of  Ambassadors  at  Constantinople  prior  to 
its  presentation  to  the  Porte,  M.  Isvolsky  left  Vienna  for  St. 
Petersburg,  and  proceeded  some  weeks  later  to  visit  the 
Tsar  at  Livadia.  Questioned  by  the  Tsar  as  to  his  arrange- 
ments with  Austria-Hungary,  the  Russian  Foreign  Minister 
reported  that  he  and  Aehrenthal  were  in  entire  agreement, 
and  that  they  had  together  crossed  every  "  t "  and  dotted 
every  "  i "  of  the  last  reform  prescribed  by  the  Miirzsteg 
Programme ;  whereupon  the  Tsar  produced  a  secret 
despatch  from  Constantinople  stating  that  Aehrenthal  had 
offered  the  Porte  to  drop  the  Judicial  Reform  if  Turkey 
would  grant  Austria- Hungary  a  concession  for  the  con- 
struction of  a  railway  through  the  Sanjak  of  Novi  Bazar. 


FOREIGN   POLICY  235 

Indignant  that  doubt  should  thus  be  cast  upon  the 
good  faith  of  his  Austro-Hungarian  colleague,  M.  Isvolsky 
replied  that  the  despatch  must  be  founded  on  a  malicious 
rumour ;  and  the  Tsar,  accepting  M.  Isvolsky's  argument, 
threw  the  despatch  into  the  fire.  Nevertheless,  it  was 
speedily  proved  to  have  been  accurate  and  M.  Isvolsky's 
confidence  to  have  been  misplaced.  In  the  course  of 
December  1 907,  the  Dragoman  of  a  European  Embassy  at 
Constantinople  actually  obtained  a  copy  of  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  proposal  to  the  Porte  ;  and  when  the  Conference 
of  Ambassadors  met  to  consider  the  Judicial  Reform,  the 
Austro-Hungarian  Ambassador,  Marquis  Pallavicini,  joined 
his  German  colleague,  the  late  Baron  Marschall  von  Bieber- 
stein,  in  obstructing  it.  Towards  the  middle  of  January  1908, 
Count  Berchtold,  the  Austro-Hungarian  Ambassador  at  St. 
Petersburg,  was  instructed  to  inform  M.  Isvolsky  that  Baron 
von  Aehrenthal  would  announce  to  the  Delegations  at  the 
end  of  the  month  that  Austria-Hungary  had  applied  for  and 
had  been  granted  a  concession  to  construct  the  Novi  Bazar 
Railway.  Despite  M.  Isvolsky's  entreaties  that  the  announce- 
ment should  not  be  made  public,  Aehrenthal,  who  was 
anxious  to  score  a  parliamentary  success,  informed  the  Dele- 
gations on  January  28,  1908,  that  the  Railway  would  be 
constructed  and  that  it  would  "  constitute  a  new  and  im- 
portant route  from  Central  Europe  to  Egypt  and  India"! 

The  precise  purpose  of  this  pompous  announcement  has 
never  been  quite  clear.  In  view  of  facts  subsequently 
brought  to  light,  it  may  be  doubted  whether  Aehrenthal 
himself  knew  exactly  what  effect  he  meant  to  produce  by 
bartering  the  Judicial  Reform  for  the  Novi  Bazar  Railway. 
Analysis  of  his  work  as  Austro-Hungarian  Foreign  Minister 
leads  irresistibly  to  the  conclusion  that  his  foresight  and 
power  of  imagination  were  inferior  to  his  tenacity  and  power 
of  resistance.  He  possessed  also  a  faculty  for  self-deception 
that  often  led  him  and  his  subordinates  to  believe  a  given 
situation  to  be  other  than  it  really  was.  It  is  conceivable 
that  he  may  have  thought  a  railway  through  the  Sanjak  to 


236  THE   HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

be  a  great  acquisition  for  the  Monarchy — the  very  Sanjak 
which  he  was  to  abandon  nine  months  later,  ostensibly  as  a 
pledge  of  his  friendly  disposition  towards  Turkey  and  as  a 
sign  to  Europe  that  the  Monarchy  no  longer  dreamt  of  terri- 
torial expansion,  but  really  as  a  concession  to  Italy  and  in 
obedience  to  the  Austro- Hungarian  General  Staff,  which 
insisted  that,  in  case  of  war,  the  Sanjak  would  be  a  veritable 
death-trap  for  Austro- Hungarian  troops  and  that  the  real 
line  of  advance  towards  Salonica  lay  along  the  Morava  valley 
through  the  heart  of  Servia.  Aehrenthal  appears  not  to 
have  known,  when  negotiating  with  Turkey  for  the  railway 
and  when  announcing  triumphantly  to  the  Delegations  the 
impending  construction  of  a  new  route  from  Central  Europe 
to  Egypt  and  India,  that  his  line  would  be  considerably 
longer  than  the  existing  line  by  way  of  Belgrade  and  Nish, 
and  that  the  conversion  of  the  Eastern  extension  of  the 
Bosnian  Railway  from  Sarajevo  to  Uvatz  to  a  normal  gauge, 
would  be  almost  impossible  from  an  engineering  standpoint 
and  prohibitively  expensive  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
financier.  These  elementary  facts  he  learned  later.  Mean- 
while the  blow  had  been  struck  at  Russia,  and,  as  far  as 
Austria-Hungary  was  concerned,  the  work  of  Macedonian 
Reform  was  at  an  end. 

In  the  light  of  Aehrenthal's  subsequent  conduct  and  of  his 
rancorous  controversy  with  M.  Isvolsky  that  filled  the  ensuing 
years,  it  seems  probable  that  his  principal  motive  was  a 
desire  to  destroy  the  position  of  his  Russian  colleague,  whom 
he  regarded  as  responsible  for  the  Anglo-Russian  rapproche- 
ment. Could  Isvolsky  be  compelled  to  resign  by  public 
proof  that  he  had  been  outwitted,  Aehrenthal  and  Prince 
Billow  may  have  thought  that  it  would  be  easier  to  break 
up  the  understanding  between  Russia  and  England.  But 
Aehrenthal,  who  knew  only  the  old,  reactionary  Russia,  and 
was,  like  many  Austrian  bureaucrats,  totally  unable  to  reckon 
with  moral  values  in  politics,  miscalculated  the  effect  of  his 
manoeuvre.  Instead  of  turning  against  M.  Isvolsky  for 
having  allowed  himself  to  be  duped,  Russian  public  opinion 


FOREIGN  POLICY  237 

turned  against  Austria-Hungary  and  Aehrenthal  for  having 
played  him  false.  M.  Isvolsky,  for  his  part,  neutralized  the 
Novi  Bazar  Railway  scheme  by  putting  forward  a  proposal 
for  an  anti-Austrian  railway  from  the  Danube  to  the  Adriatic 
— a  proposal  which  Aehrenthal  accepted  "  in  principle,"  with 
the  mental  reservation  that  much  would  happen  before  he 
accepted  it  in  practice.  In  France  and  England  indignation 
at  Aehrenthal's  trickery  was  almost  as  hot  as  in  Russia. 
On  February  25,  1908,  Sir  Edward  Grey  criticized,  in 
moderate  but  telling  language,  the  action  of  Austria- 
Hungary  in  seeking  a  private  concession  from  Sultan  Abdul 
Hamid  at  a  moment  when  the  Powers  were  engaged  in 
coercing  him  into  accepting  the  Judicial  Reform.  The 
British  Foreign  Secretary  insisted  that  it  would  be  the 
duty  of  the  other  Powers  now  to  take  the  work  of  reform 
vigorously  in  hand  and  to  compel  the  Porte  to  appoint  a 
Governor- General  for  Macedonia.  Aehrenthal  complained 
to  the  British  Ambassador  in  Vienna  that  Sir  Edward  Grey's 
speech  was  "  an  unfriendly  act,"  and  assumed  an  attitude  of 
injured  innocence.  "  Who  could  have  foreseen,"  he  asked, 
"  that  the  Sultan  would  use  the  Austro-Hungarian  applica- 
tion for  the  railway  as  a  weapon  to  destroy  the  Concert  of 
Europe  ? "  But  he  found  no  reply  to  the  Ambassador's 
pertinent  rejoinder,  "  Who  put  a  sword  into  the  hand  of  a 
skilful  fencer?" 

Meanwhile  the  situation  was  fast  developing.  Under 
the  influence  of  the  Austro-Hungarian  abandonment  of  the 
MUrzsteg  Programme,  England  and  Russia  began  to  concert 
means  to  ensure  the  efficacy  of  the  Macedonian  Reforms. 
During  the  meeting  between  King  Edward  and  the  Tsar  at 
Reval  on  June  9  and  10,  1908,  Sir  Charles  Hardinge  and 
M.  Isvolsky,  who  accompanied  their  respective  sovereigns, 
agreed  upon  a  draft  programme  which  is  understood  to  have 
contemplated  the  appointment  of  a  Governor  -  General  for 
Macedonia.  King  Edward  and  the  Tsar,  for  their  part,  are 
credibly  reported  to  have  tabooed  politics  entirely  —  a 
circumstance  which  did  not  prevent  Aehrenthal  and  the 


238  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

German- Jewish  press  of  Austria- Hungary  and  Germany 
from  treating  the  Anglo-Russian  interview  as  a  conspiracy 
against  the  status  quo  and  as  an  attack,  which  Austria-Hungary 
and  Germany  must  resist,  upon  the  sovereignty  of  the  Sultan 
and  upon  the  administrative  integrity  of  his  dominions.  In 
all  the  Jewish  Freemasonic  Lodges  of  Salonica  and  Mace- 
donia, which  served  as  meeting -places  for  the  "Young 
Turkish "  conspirators  against  Abdul  Hamid,  the  Austro- 
German  version  of  the  Reval  Meeting  was  disseminated  and 
the  doctrine  was  preached  that  action  must  be  accelerated 
in  view  of  the  peril  threatening  the  Ottoman  Empire. 
On  July  24  the  Turkish  Revolution  broke  out,  the  final  fillip 
having  been  given  by  the  betrayal  of  the  Young  Turkish 
conspiracy  to  Abdul  Hamid,  who  had  despatched  to  Salonica 
a  trusty  agent  with  a  large  sum  of  money  to  discover  its 
ramifications.  Compelled  to  choose  between  delay  with  the 
probability  of  detection  and  "  removal,"  and  the  chance  of 
success  by  immediate,  albeit  hazardous,  action,  the  Young 
Turkish  leaders  decided  to  act,  and  the  late  Major  Niazi 
Bey  took  to  the  mountains  at  Resna.  The  story  of  the 
Young  Turkish  Revolution,  with  its  triumphs  and  dis- 
appointments, need  not  here  be  told.  It  is  written  in  the 
events  that  have  convulsed  the  Near  East  during  the  last 
five  years.  Its  course  and  its  consequences  radically  trans- 
formed not  only  the  Balkan  Peninsula  but  also  the  position 
of  the  Hapsburg  Monarchy. 

As  has  been  shown,  Austro- Hungarian  statesmen  had 
long  aimed  at  converting  the  "occupation  and  administration" 
of  Bosnia-Herzegovina  into  an  annexation.  Andrassy's 
original  idea  was  to  annex  the  provinces  outright,  and 
Russia  had  doubtless  consented  to  an  annexation  in  the 
agreements  of  1876  and  1877,  as  well  as  by  the  secret 
convention  of  July  13,  1878,  although  the  last  named 
referred  only  to  an  occupation  definitive.  The  agreements 
of  1876  and  1877  were  made  in  view  of  the  impending 
Russo-Turkish  War,  and  were  intended  to  purchase  Austro- 
Hungarian  neutrality  while  Russia  established  a  big 


FOREIGN  POLICY  239 

Bulgaria  and  freed  the  Orthodox  Christians  of  European 
Turkey.  Thanks  to  the  spirited  help  of  Rumania,  Russia 
compelled  Turkey  to  sue  for  peace,  and  succeeded  by  the 
Treaty  of  San  Stefano  in  marking  out  a  Bulgaria  that  would 
have  lain  athwart  the  path  of  Austria-Hungary  had  the 
Monarchy  ever  attempted  to  advance  towards  Salonica.  In 
these  circumstances  it  would  have  mattered  little  to  Russia 
that  Austria -Hungary  should  have  incorporated  Bosnia- 
Herzegovina  in  the  Monarchy.  With  the  exception  of  the 
Montenegrins,  the  Serbo-Croatians  or  Southern  Slavs  seem 
long  to  have  been  left  out  of  account  by  Russian  statesmen. 
Servia,  then  ruled  by  King  Milan  Obrenovitch,  was  regarded 
almost  as  an  Austrian  satrapy.  Russia  had  not  acquired 
a  clear  consciousness  of  the  potential  importance  of  the 
Southern  Slav  question  as  a  whole.  Had  the  Treaty  of  San 
Stefano  remained  intact,  it  is  probable  that  Russia  would 
not  have  objected  to  the  annexation  of  Bosnia-Herzegovina, 
and  even  of  the  Sanjak  of  Novi  Bazar  by  Austria-Hungary. 
But  Andrassy  who,  like  Bismarck  and  Disraeli,  was  determined 
that  the  Pan-Slav  cause  should  not  triumph  and  that  the 
Treaty  of  San  Stefano  should  be  revised,  inflicted  upon  Russia 
at  the  Congress  of  Berlin  so  deep  a  humiliation  that  the 
Russian  attitude  towards  the  acquisition  of  Bosnia-Herzegovina 
by  the  Monarchy  necessarily  changed.  Russia  had  borne  the 
losses  and  the  cost  of  the  war  against  Turkey  while  Austria- 
Hungary,  without  raising  a  finger  or  incurring  other  expense 
than  that  of  having  supported  some  thousands  of  refugees 
from  Bosnia-Herzegovina  during  the  insurrection  of  1875—76, 
was  "  compensated "  with  two  Turkish  provinces.  British 
policy  has  rarely  been  worse  inspired  than  when,  under  the 
Oriental  guidance  of  Disraeli,  it  secured  Cyprus  as  the  price 
of  peace  with  dishonour,  helped  Austria -Hungary  and 
Germany  to  tear  up  the  Treaty  of  San  Stefano  and  in- 
curred the  moral  responsibility  for  the  carnage  and  havoc 
of  the  recent  Balkan  wars. 

The  unexpected  resistance  encountered  by  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  troops  during  the  occupation  of  Bosnia-Herze- 


240  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

govina  and  the  difficulty  subsequently  experienced  in  crush- 
ing Bosnian  risings,  put  the  idea  of  annexing  the  provinces 
beyond  the  range  of  practical  politics  for  nearly  twenty 
years.  Servia,  moreover,  came  increasingly  under  Austro- 
Hungarian  diplomatic  control,  especially  after  the  defeat  of 
her  army  at  Slivnitza  in  1885  and  the  intervention  of  the 
Monarchy  to  check  the  march  of  the  victorious  Bulgarians. 
Since  Servia  seemed  destined  to  fall,  sooner  or  later,  into 
Austro- Hungarian  hands,  there  could  be  no  reason  to  rouse 
sleeping  dogs  by  pressing  for  the  annexation  of  Bosnia- 
Herzegovina.  It  seemed  a  sounder  policy  for  Austria- 
Hungary  to  prepare  a  situation  such  as  to  bring  Bosnia- 
Herzegovina  and  Servia,  at  one  stroke,  within  the  con- 
fines of  the  Hapsburg  realms.  The  abdication  of  King 
Milan  in  1889,  the  growth  of  Russian  influence  in  Servia 
under  Queen  Nathalie  in  the  early  'nineties,  the  quarrels 
and  reconciliations  between  Milan,  Nathalie,  and  their  son 
Alexander,  the  return  of  Nathalie  to  Servia  in  1895  followed 
by  that  of  Milan  as  commander-in-chief  of  the  army  in  1897, 
appear,  however,  to  have  convinced  Austria- Hungary  that  it 
would  be  safer  to  annex  Bosnia-Herzegovina  as  soon  as 
possible.  As  has  been  stated,  the  idea  of  annexation  was 
mooted  by  Count  Gohichowski  during  the  Emperor  Francis 
Joseph's  visit  to  St.  Petersburg  in  April  1897.  Russia 
negatived  the  suggestion  and  the  matter  dropped.  Some 
nine  years  later,  in  the  summer  of  1 906,  Count  Goiuchowski 
again  broached  the  subject  in  conversation  with  the  Russian 
Ambassador  in  Vienna,  Prince  Urussoff,  who  once  more  de- 
precated the  idea.  In  the  meantime  the  outlook  in  Servia 
had  been  radically  changed  by  the  assassination  of  King 
Alexander  and  Queen  Draga  during  the  night  of  June  10— 
n,  1903,  and  Servian  policy  under  King  Peter  Karageorge- 
vitch  had  tended  to  become  more  Russophil.  The  obscure 
history  of  the  plot  to  remove  King  Alexander  and  Queen 
Draga  may  never  be  fully  elucidated.  The  plot  may,  as  has 
been  alleged,  have  been  hatched  under  Russian  auspices  but 
its  existence  was  certainly  known  to  the  Austro-Hungarian 


FOREIGN  POLICY  241 

Government  which  was  fully  informed  of  the  meetings  held 
by  the  conspirators  in  a  well-known  cafe  of  the  Vienna 
Ringstrasse.  Early  in  March  1903  the  late  M.  de  Kallay, 
Joint  Austro  -  Hungarian  Finance  Minister  and  Chief 
Secretary  for  Bosnia- Herzegovina,  informed  the  writer  that 
King  Alexander  was  in  a  perilous  position  and  might  not 
have  many  weeks  to  live  ;  and  when,  immediately  after  the 
arrival  of  the  news  of  the  assassination,  the  writer  reminded 
M.  de  Kallay  of  this  prediction,  he  replied,  "  Quite  true  ; 
and  that  will  prove  to  you  that  what  I  tell  you  about  the 
East  is  apt  to  be  well-founded.  Alexander  was  doomed 
and  the  intrigues  of  Nicholas  of  Montenegro  have  been 
nipped  in  the  bud."  The  writer  objected  that  Peter  Kara- 
georgevitch  was  the  son-in-law  of  King,  then  Prince,  Nicholas 
of  Montenegro.  "  Yes,"  answered  M.  de  Kallay,  "  but  his 
relations  with  his  father-in-law  are  so  bad  that  he  is  not 
dangerous.  Besides,  the  Karageorgevitchs  have  always  had 
two  elements  in  their  policy — not  to  quarrel  with  Austria- 
Hungary  and  not  to  quarrel  with  Turkey,  their  most  power- 
ful neighbours."  "  Then,"  returned  the  writer,  "  the  accession 
of  Karageorgevitch  does  not  mean  trouble  in  the  Balkans  ?  " 
"  I  did  not  say  that,"  rejoined  M.  de  Kallay.  "  Karageorge- 
vitch may  be  obliged  to  make  himself  popular  by  engaging 
in  some  national  enterprise,  though,  as  he  is  no  longer  young, 
I  do  not  anticipate  trouble  in  that  direction  ;  it  is  Nicholas 
of  Montenegro  who,  seeing  the  defeat  of  his  schemes  to  put 
his  second  son,  Mirko,  on  to  the  Servian  throne,  may  try  to 
push  forward  to  Prizrend  through  the  Albanian  Catholic 
country  so  as  to  work  round  towards  Servia  from  the  South. 
It  will  be  the  business  of  Turkey  to  deal  with  him." 

This  conversation  took  place  at  the  Joint  Finance 
Ministry  in  the  Johannesgasse  at  Vienna  towards  10.30  A.M. 
on  June  1 1,  1903,  the  morning  following  the  night  of  the 
assassination.  On  June  12  the  Austro-Hungarian  Foreign 
Office  organ,  the  Fremdenblatt,  commented  upon  the 
assassination  in  a  tone  so  cynical  that  the  French 
Ambassador  felt  bound,  before  transmitting  the  comment 

R 


242  THE   HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

to  his  Government,  to  ask  Count  Gotuchowski  whether  the 
Fremdenblatt  article — with  its  declaration  that  the  change  of 
regime  was  a  matter  of  comparative  indifference  to  Austria- 
Hungary,  who  required  only  that  Servia,  whether  ruled  by 
Obrenovitch  or  Karageorgevitch,  should  maintain  good 
relations  with  the  Monarchy — really  represented  Austro- 
Hungarian  official  views.  Count  Gofuchowski,  who  had 
not  yet  seen  the  article  in  print,  read  it  through  in  the 
Ambassador's  presence  and  confirmed  the  accuracy  of  its 
standpoint.  A  violent  attack  in  the  Zeit  upon  such  callous- 
ness on  the  part  of  the  official  organ  of  a  Monarchical  State 
towards  the  assassination  of  Crowned  Heads,  moved  the 
Fremdenblatt  rapidly  to  change  its  tone  and  to  refer  there- 
after to  the  assassination  in  terms  of  horror.  Nevertheless 
the  impression  persisted  in  the  Diplomatic  Corps  that  the 
Austro-Hungarian  Government  was  by  no  means  displeased 
at  the  removal  of  the  Obrenovitch  dynasty  ;  and  it  is  an 
interesting  fact  that  when  Peter  Karageorgevitch  passed 
through  Vienna  on  his  way  from  Geneva  to  assume  the 
crown  at  Belgrade,  the  Austrian  authorities  refrained  from 
interfering  with  the  crowd  of  Serbo-Croatians  that  assembled 
to  welcome  him  at  the  Western  Railway  Station,  although, 
among  other  manifestations,  cheers  were  given  for  "  Peter, 
King  of  Croatia  ! "  Austro-Servian  relations  remained  indeed 
tolerably  good  until  the  end  of  1905  when  Austro-Hungarian 
equanimity  was  upset  by  the  conclusion  of  a  Customs  Union 
between  Servia  and  Bulgaria,  and  Count  Goiuchowski,  as  a 
punitive  measure,  declared  a  tariff  war  against  Servia. 

From  this  measure  of  coercion  dates  the  regeneration  of 
Servia.  The  Austro-Hungarian  Foreign  Minister,  Count 
Gofuchowski,  who  appears  to  have  neglected  the  first  signs 
of  a  rapprochement  between  Servia  and  Bulgaria,  acted 
hastily  and  angrily  upon  learning  that  the  Customs  Union 
was  virtually  concluded  and  that  it  had  been  ratified  by 
acclamation  in  the  Bulgarian  Sobranye.  With  less  circum- 
spection than  he  was  wont  to  display,  he  resolved  to  bring 
Servia  to  her  knees  by  excluding  Servian  cattle,  swine,  and 


FOREIGN  POLICY  243 

agricultural  produce  from  the  Austro-Hungarian  market. 
The  "  Pig  War  "  thus  begun  was  destined  to  inflict  greater 
damage  upon  the  Monarchy  than  seemed  conceivable  at 
the  moment.  It  drove  Servia  into  a  policy  of  economic 
expansion  and  obliged  her  to  seek  in  Egypt,  France,  England 
and  elsewhere  the  market  she  had  lost  in  the  Dual  Monarchy. 
It  deprived  the  inhabitants  of  the  Monarchy  of  their  regular 
supply  of  cattle  and  meat,  and  exposed  them  to  the  ex- 
tortionate tactics  of  the  Agrarian  parties  in  Hungary  and 
Austria  which  hastened  to  raise  the  prices  of  meat  to  an 
unprecedented  level.  It  damaged  even  the  Agrarians  them- 
selves by  preventing  the  periodical  renewal  of  their  live 
stock  from  the  Servian  reservoir;  but,  most  of  all,  it 
damaged  the  Monarchy  by  creating  an  atmosphere  of  ani- 
mosity between  Vienna  and  Belgrade,  and  by  stimulating 
the  Servian  spirit  of  self-reliance.  The  Servian  Government 
which,  in  normal  circumstances,  would  probably  have  pur- 
chased in  Austria  the  military  material  required  for  the 
reorganization  of  its  army  and  would  thus  have  become  to 
some  extent  dependent  upon  Austria,  turned  instead  towards 
France,  and  purchased  field-artillery,  ammunition  and  other 
supplies  from  Creusot.  At  the  same  time,  Servian  ill-will 
towards  the  Monarchy  was  increased  by  the  attempts  of  the 
Hungarian  Government  to  destroy  the  Coalition  that  had 
been  formed  by  Serbs  and  Croats  in  the  Croatian  Diet,  and 
to  combat,  by  means  of  the  Agram  High  Treason  trial,  the 
supposed  pro-Servian  tendencies  among  the  Southern  Slavs 
of  the  Monarchy.  This,  briefly,  was  the  Austro-Servian  situa- 
tion in  the  summer  of  1908  when  the  Young  Turkish  Revolu- 
tion suddenly  changed  the  terms  of  the  Balkan  problem, 
and  convinced  Baron  von  Aehrenthal  that  the  annexation 
of  Bosnia- Herzegovina  could  no  longer  be  delayed. 

THE  ANNEXATION  CRISIS 

Prior  to  the  Turkish  Revolution  (July  24),  and  after  the 
Anglo- Russian  meeting  at  Reval  on  June  9-10,  1908,  Baron 


244  THE   HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

von  Aehrenthal  had  received  from  the  Russian  Foreign 
Minister,  M.  Isvolsky,  an  important  memorandum,  or  Aide- 
memoire,  dated  June  19,  on  pending  Balkan  issues.  Though 
the  text  of  this  document  has  never  been  published,  it  is 
understood  to  have  suggested  that  these  issues,  including  the 
annexation  of  Bosnia-Herzegovina  and  the  opening  of  the 
Dardanelles,  should  be  settled  between  Austria- Hungary 
and  Russia  by  mutual  consent  on  a  European  basis.  The 
object  of  the  Aide-memoire  was,  in  M.  Isvolsky's  view,  to 
define  more  exactly  certain  features  of  the  Austro-Russian 
agreement  of  1897  which  had  been  modified  by  Baron  von 
Aehrenthal's  action  in  obtaining  from  Turkey  the  concession 
for  the  Novi  Bazar  Railway.  What  reply  Aehrenthal  made 
to  the  Aide-memoire  is  not  known,  nor  has  the  relationship 
of  the  Aide-memoire  to  antecedent  Austro-Russian  corre- 
spondence ever  been  clearly  established.  M.  Isvolsky,  whose 
ambition  it  was  to  revise  the  Treaty  of  Berlin  in  a  sense 
favourable  to  Russia,  doubtless  surrounded  his  suggestions 
with  saving  clauses  and  considerations  ;  but  the  interesting 
fact  remains  that,  after  the  Reval  meeting  and  before  the 
Turkish  Revolution,  he  intimated  to  Baron  von  Aehrenthal  the 
readiness  of  Russia  eventually  to  consent  to  the  annexation  of 
the  occupied  provinces.  In  making  this  intimation  M.  Isvolsky 
was  doubtless  influenced  by  the  manifold  symptoms  of  an 
approaching  Balkan  Crisis  and  by  the  wish  to  prepare  for 
it  in  friendly  intelligence  with  Austria -Hungary.  What 
course  the  Austro-Russian  negotiations  would  have  taken 
had  not  the  Young  Turkish  Revolution  broken  out  at  the 
end  of  July  is  now  a  question  merely  academic.  The 
Revolution  certainly  strengthened  Aehrenthal's  desire  to 
carry  through  the  annexation  without  delay  and  to  use 
M.  Isvolsky's  Aide-memoire  as  a  lever  to  obtain  Russian 
consent.  When  the  archives  of  the  Austro- Hungarian 
Foreign  Office  are  opened  to  some  future  historian,  the 
workings  of  Aehrenthal's  mind  may  be  clearly  revealed  ; 
but  to  contemporary  observers  acquainted  with  the  main 
facts  of  Austro-Hungarian  and  Russian  action,  there  still 


FOREIGN   POLICY  245 

appears  much  that  is  mysterious  in  Aehrenthal's  manage- 
ment of  the  matter. 

In  Austria,  counsels  were  divided  both  as  to  the  moment 
and  the  method  of  effecting  the  annexation.  The  Austrian 
historian,  Dr.  Friedjung,  then  an  intimate  friend  and  adviser 
of  Baron  von  Aehrenthal,  stated  in  the  Neue  Freie  Presse  of 
March  25,  1909 — the  famous  article  that  led  to  the  Fried  - 
jung  trial  of  December  1909 — that  Herr  Rappaport,  the 
Austro-Hungarian  Civil  Agent  in  Macedonia,  had  been 
instructed  to  inform  the  Young  Turkish  Committee  at 
Salonica  of  the  Emperor  Francis  Joseph's  intention  to  grant 
a  constitution  to  the  occupied  provinces  but  had  received  the 
"  highly  offensive "  reply  that  the  right  which  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  Monarch  proposed  to  exercise  belonged  ex- 
clusively to  the  Suzerain  of  the  provinces — the  Sultan. 
This  impertinence  on  the  part  of  the  Young  Turks,  added 
Dr.  Friedjung,  assuredly  hastened  the  necessary  resolve  of 
Austria-Hungary. 

It  is  indeed  probable  that  Baron  von  Aehrenthal  com- 
mitted the  imprudence  of  consulting  the  Committee  of 
Union  and  Progress  in  regard  to  the  proposed  annexation, 
after  having,  some  months  earlier,  rejected  an  appeal  made 
to  him  by  Young  Turkish  emissaries  for  financial  assist- 
ance. The  view  that  the  restoration  of  the  Turkish  Con- 
stitution had  rendered  inevitable  the  granting  of  some  form 
of  constitutional  autonomy  to  Bosnia-Herzegovina  was  current 
in  Vienna  at  the  beginning  of  August  1908,  and  a  foreign 
authority  who  was  consulted  on  the  subject  tendered  the 
advice  that  the  spontaneous  gift  of  a  Constitution  would 
greatly  strengthen  the  position  of  the  Monarchy  in  regard 
to  the  two  Provinces.  Whereas  a  decree  of  annexation 
would  be  likely  to  evoke  protests  from  Turkey  and  from 
several  European  Powers,  the  granting  of  a  Constitution, 
argued  this  authority,  would  meet  with  no  serious  objection 
and  would  be  in  itself  a  clear  assertion  of  Austro-Hungarian 
sovereignty  over  the  Provinces.  To  the  objection  that  the 
Bosnian  Musulmans  might  take  advantage  of  constitutional 


246  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

autonomy  to  elect  deputies  to  the  Turkish  Parliament,  the 
authority  in  question  replied  that,  in  this  case,  the  Bosnian 
Musulmans  would  themselves  supply  Austria-Hungary  with 
a  valid  reason  for  annexing  the  Provinces  outright  since,  in 
such  circumstances,  annexation  would  be  a  legitimate  act  of 
political  self-defence  against  the  abuse  of  liberties  magnani- 
mously granted.  This  sage  advice  went  unheeded,  although 
the  considerations  on  which  it  was  based  are  understood  to 
have  been  put  forward  during  the  Austrian  Cabinet  Council 
which,  on  August  18,  1908 — the  Emperor  Francis  Joseph's 
birthday — discussed  the  proposed  annexation  and  sanctioned 
it  in  principle.  The  view  prevailed  that  the  annexation  must 
be  effected  as  a  simple  act  of  Austro-Hungarian  sovereignty. 
But  before  the  annexation  was  proclaimed  on  October  6,  1908, 
Baron  von  Aehrenthal's  diplomatic  errors  sowed  the  seeds  of 
future  embarrassment  for  the  Monarchy. 

On  August  13,  1908,  King  Edward  paid  what  was  to 
prove  his  last  visit  to  the  Emperor  Francis  Joseph  at  Ischl. 
On  his  way  thither  he  had  visited  the  German  Emperor  at 
Friedrichshof  Castle  near  Homburg.  The  question  of  an 
Anglo-German  Agreement  for  the  limitation  of  naval  arma- 
ments was  then  in  the  foreground  of  public  discussion  and 
is  understood  to  have  been  touched  upon  in  the  conversations 
between  King  Edward,  the  Emperor  William,  and  their 
advisers.  In  any  case  the  result  was  negative,  and,  on  reaching 
Ischl,  King  Edward  is  believed  to  have  opened  his  heart  to 
his  old  friend,  the  Emperor  Francis  Joseph,  and  to  have 
suggested  that  the  Austro-Hungarian  Monarch  should  use 
his  good  offices  with  the  Emperor  William  in  favour  of  a 
naval  agreement  which,  in  the  opinion  of  King  Edward, 
would  contribute  notably  to  diminish  the  tension  of  Anglo- 
German  relations.  Either  spontaneously,  or  under  the 
influence  of  Baron  von  Aehrenthal  whose  anti- English 
tendencies  were  then  pronounced  and  who  suspected  King 
Edward  of  attempting  to  win  over  Austria-Hungary  to 
the  Triple  Entente  in  order  to  complete  the  "  encircle- 
ment" of  Germany,  the  Emperor  Francis  Joseph  refused 


FOREIGN  POLICY  247 

to  entertain  the  British  suggestion,  and  King  Edward 
left  Ischl  for  his  annual  "  cure "  at  Marienbad  in  a  dis- 
appointed mood.  Possibly  on  account  of  this  contretemps, 
but  more  probably  because  the  Emperor  Francis  Joseph 
and  Baron  von  Aehrenthal  feared  British  opposition  to  the 
annexation  of  Bosnia  -  Herzegovina  at  a  moment  when 
Turkey  seemed  to  be  entering  upon  an  era  of  progress  and 
reform,  nothing  was  said  to  King  Edward  at  Ischl  in  regard 
to  the  intended  annexation.  On  August  14,  1908,  at 
Marienbad  King  Edward  dismissed  as  entirely  improbable 
a  suggestion  that  Austria-Hungary  was  preparing  to  annex 
Bosnia  -  Herzegovina,  and  remarked  that  otherwise  the 
Emperor  Francis  Joseph  would  surely  have  alluded  to  the 
plan  in  conversation  with  him.  King  Edward  was  not 
alone  in  this  optimism.  The  Russian  Foreign  Minister, 
M.  Isvolsky,  who  was  then  staying  at  Karlsbad,  expressed, 
as  late  as  August  26,  the  conviction  that  Austria-Hungary 
would  not  engage  in  so  serious  an  adventure  as  the  annexa- 
tion. "  Otherwise,"  said  M.  Isvolsky,  "  she  would  raise  a 
grave  question  that  would  demand  European  treatment."  An 
Austro-Hungarian  Ambassador  accredited  to  a  Great  Power 
stated  early  in  September,  after  repeated  conversations  with 
Baron  von  Aehrenthal,  that  the  idea  of  annexing  the  two 
Provinces  had  been  abandoned.  Yet  by  the  beginning  of 
September  M.  Isvolsky  had  received  information  that  the 
annexation  was  decided  upon  and  that  it  would  be  accom- 
panied by  the  proclamation  of  Bulgarian  independence. 
At  Karlsbad  on  September  4,  he  informed  the  late 
M.  Milovanovitch,  the  Servian  Foreign  Minister,  that  both 
the  annexation  and  the  proclamation  of  independence  were 
inevitable,  and  asked  M.  Milovanovitch  to  suggest  a  scheme 
of  compensations  for  Servia.  On  September  10  M.  Milo- 
vanovitch returned  to  Karlsbad  and  proposed  to  M.  Isvolsky 
the  scheme  of  compensations  which  the  Russian  statesman 
and  Sir  Edward  Grey  afterwards  supported.  Thus  it  is  clear 
that  before  starting  from  Karlsbad  on  September  1 5  to  meet 
Baron  von  Aehrenthal  at  Buchlau  in  Moravia — the  residence 


of  Count  Berchtold,  then  Austro- Hungarian  Ambassador  at 
St.  Petersburg — M.  Isvolsky  was  prepared  to  negotiate  with 
Austria-Hungary  on  the  basis  of  the  annexation  of  Bosnia- 
Herzegovina  and  the  proclamation  of  Bulgarian  independ- 
ence. The  details  of  the  Buchlau  Meeting  have  never  been 
divulged  though  many  interesting  indiscretions  have  been 
committed  in  regard  to  them.  It  is  doubtful  whether  the 
full  truth  will  ever  be  known,  since  the  chief  conversation 
took  place  en  tete-d-ttie  between  the  Austro-Hungarian  and 
Russian  Foreign  Ministers  who  communicated  only  the 
general  results  of  their  negotiations  to  the  diplomatists 
who  accompanied  them  ;  but  it  is  certain  that  on  leaving 
Buchlau,  M.  Isvolsky  believed  himself  to  have  attained  a 
complete  agreement  with  Aehrenthal  on  all  points  under 
discussion.  Whether  Baron  von  Aehrenthal  was  of  the 
same  opinion  is  a  matter  for  conjecture.  He  went  to 
Buchlau  with  a  suite  of  diplomatists  and  Foreign  Office 
officials  whose  functions  were  intended  by  him  to  be  those 
of  witnesses  in  case  of  subsequent  contestation.  In  after- 
dinner  talk  he  skilfully  extracted  from  M.  Isvolsky  admis- 
sions in  regard  to  the  agreement  privately  attained,  and 
quite  as  skilfully  avoided  giving  any  clear  undertaking  as 
to  the  manner  and  moment  of  the  action  contemplated. 
Aehrenthal's  apologists  aver  that  he  informed  M.  Isvolsky 
that  Bosnia-Herzegovina  would  be  annexed  "au  moment 
favorable "  ;  and  a  well-informed  pro-Russian  writer  in  the 
Fortnightly  Review  stated,  in  the  autumn  of  1909,  that 
when  M.  Isvolsky  insisted  on  receiving  considerable  previous 
notice  of  the  intended  date  of  annexation,  Baron  von 
Aehrenthal  unhesitatingly  replied,  "  Why,  certainly ;  that 
is  a  matter  of  course."  This  statement  has  never  been  and 
probably  could  not  be  challenged  by  Aehrenthal's  apologists. 
M.  Isvolsky  consequently  left  Buchlau  in  the  belief  that  he 
would  have  ample  time  to  prepare  for  the  execution  of  the 
part  of  the  agreement  in  which  Russia  was  mainly  interested 
— probably  the  question  of  the  opening  of  the  Dardanelles 
— and  to  arrange  that  the  projected  modifications  of  the 


FOREIGN  POLICY  249 

status  quo  in  the  Near  East  should  take  place  smoothly 
with  general  European  assent. 

How  M.  Isvolsky  could  place  such  confidence  in  the  good 
faith  of  a  statesman  like  Aehrenthal  who,  not  a  year  earlier, 
had  tricked  him  deplorably  in  regard  to  the  Novi  Bazar 
Railway  concession,  is  a  psychological  mystery.  Possibly 
the  brilliant  prospect  of  being  able  to  revise  the  Berlin  Treaty 
in  favour  of  Russia  blinded  him  to  the  danger  attending  any 
secret  negotiations  with  Aehrenthal  whom  M.  Isvolsky  knew 
to  be,  figuratively  speaking,  thirsting  for  his  blood.  As  the 
ally  of  France  and  the  friend  of  England  he  was,  moreover, 
under  a  moral  obligation  immediately  to  inform  the  French 
and  British  Governments  of  what  had  taken  place  at  Buchlau  ; 
but,  lulled  by  a  sense  of  false  security,  he  preferred  to  wait 
until  he  should,  three  weeks  later,  have  an  opportunity  of 
conferring  personally  at  Paris  and  in  London  with  the  French 
and  British  Foreign  Ministers.  The  sequel  is  best  stated  in 
the  words  of  Dr.  Friedjung,  the  pro-Aehrenthalian  historian, 
who  wrote  in  the  Osterreichische  Rundschau  of  October  I, 
1908  (p.  7) :  "  Both  statesmen  were  satisfied  with  the  results 
attained  (at  Buchlau),  and  each  of  them  took  the  measures 
he  thought  necessary,  albeit  in  very  different  ways.  Isvolsky 
travelled  slowly  and  comfortably  to  his  meeting  with  Tittoni, 
stayed  a  full  week  in  Italy,  saw  King  Victor  Emmanuel  in 
one  of  his  castles,  and,  believing  himself  sure  of  the  assent  of 
the  Triple  Alliance,  arrived  tranquilly  in  Paris  on  October  3. 
In  the  meantime  Aehrenthal  worked  with  fiery  zeal  and 
astonished  the  world  by  the  Emperor  Francis  Joseph's 
(annexation)  manifesto  of  October  5  (issued  on  the  evening 
of  October  6  at  Vienna  and  promulgated  at  Serajevo  on 
October  7).  He  created  a  fait  accompli,  while  Isvolsky  still 
stuck  fast  in  long-winded  preparations." 

In  view  of  the  agreement  at  Buchlau  that  M.  Isvolsky 
should  have  considerable  previous  notice  of  the  intended 
date  of  the  annexation,  Dr.  Friedjung's  allegations,  which 
bear  a  highly  official  character,  amount  to  a  charge  of 
deliberate  bad  faith  against  his  then  friend,  Baron  von 


250  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

Aehrenthal.  It  has  been  stated  without  denial  that  the  only 
notice  given  to  M.  Isvolsky  was  in  the  form  of  a  private 
letter  from  Aehrenthal  that  reached  him  on  October  3,  1908, 
when  he  arrived  in  Paris  from  his  visit  to  King  Victor 
Emmanuel  at  Racconigi.  Saturday,  October  3,  was  indeed 
an  important  day  in  the  history  of  the  Annexation  Crisis. 
On  October  i  and  2  the  Austro-Hungarian  Ambassadors 
to  France,  Italy,  England  and  Germany  had  been  despatched 
from  Budapest,  where  the  Court  was  then  residing,  with 
letters  from  the  Emperor  Francis  Joseph  to  inform  the 
Heads  of  the  States  to  whom  they  were  accredited  that 
the  Emperor  intended  to  extend  his  sovereignty  to  Bosnia- 
Herzegovina  on  October  6.  Two,  at  least,  and  probably  all 
of  these  Ambassadors  had  been  informed  by  Baron  von 
Aehrenthal  that  the  proclamation  of  Bulgarian  independence 
would  precede  the  Annexation  by  one  day.  But  in  order 
that  this  arrangement  might  not  become  known,  they  were 
instructed  not  to  deliver  the  Emperor  Francis  Joseph's 
letters  before  Monday,  October  5.  Count  Khevenhuller- 
Metsch,  the  Austro-Hungarian  Ambassador  to  the  French 
Republic,  found,  however,  on  Saturday,  October  3,  when 
requesting  an  audience  of  President  Fallieres  for  Monday, 
October  5,  that  the  President  would  be  at  Rambouillet  on 
that  day.  Count  Khevenhiiller  therefore  decided  to  present 
the  Emperor's  letter  on  Saturday  afternoon,  October  3.  In 
the  course  of  the  audience  President  Fallieres  remarked, 
"  La  lettre  de  Sa  Majest6  annonce  1'annexion  de  la 
Bosnie-Herze'govine.  Et  1'ind^pendance  de  la  Bulgarie  ? " 
Whereto  the  Austro-Hungarian  Ambassador  truthfully  but 
incautiously  replied,  "  C'est  tout  arrange",  Monsieur  le 
President  La  Bulgarie  nous  devancera  d'un  jour."  This 
important  admission  was  communicated  by  the  French 
Government  to  Sir  Francis  Bertie,  British  Ambassador  at 
Paris,  who  immediately  informed  the  British  Foreign  Office. 
On  the  afternoon  of  the  same  day,  October  3,  Sir  W.  E. 
Goschen,  the  British  Ambassador  to  the  Austro-Hungarian 
Court,  then  at  Budapest,  enquired  officially  in  pursuance 


FOREIGN   POLICY  251 

of  precise  instructions,  whether  Baron  von  Aehrenthal  had 
any  knowledge  of  an  impending  proclamation  of  Bulgarian 
independence.  Baron  von  Aehrenthal,  who  had  on  the 
previous  evening  announced  to  the  Italian  Ambassador  the 
impending  annexation  of  Bosnia-Herzegovina  with  the  result 
that  the  Ambassador  had  suddenly  and  mysteriously  started 
for  Rome,  seemed  to  expect  that  the  British  Ambassador 
would  enquire  about  the  annexation.  Surprised  by  his 
question  concerning  Bulgarian  independence,  Baron  von 
Aehrenthal  answered  that  he  had  no  knowledge  of  an 
impending  proclamation  of  Bulgarian  independence,  that  he 
did  not  consider  it  to  be  imminent,  and  added  that  there  was 
no  mention  of  it  in  Austro-Hungarian  reports  from  Sofia. 
The  British  Ambassador  telegraphed  this  official  denial  to 
London  where  it  arrived  almost  simultaneously  with  his 
colleague's  telegram  from  Paris  reporting  Count  Kheven- 
hiiller's  statement  to  the  President  of  the  Republic.  The  pro- 
clamation of  Bulgarian  independence  on  Monday,  October  5, 
and  the  public  announcement  of  the  annexation  at  Vienna 
on  Tuesday,  October  6,  showed  that  Count  Khevenhiiller  had 
spoken  the  truth.  It  is  satisfactory  to  record  the  hitherto 
unpublished  fact  that  before  taking  up  his  new  post  at 
Berlin  (to  which  he  had  been  appointed  by  King  Edward  on 
the  previous  August  13,  during  the  King's  journey  from 
Linz  to  Ischl),  the  British  Ambassador,  Sir  W.  E.  Goschen, 
took  an  opportunity  to  tax  Baron  von  Aehrenthal  with 
untruthfulness  in  the  presence  of  several  diplomatic  wit- 
nesses. 

Why  Baron  von  Aehrenthal  should  have  lied  officially  to 
the  British  Ambassador  is  not  clear.  In  ignorance  of  the 
indiscretion  committed  by  Count  Khevenhiiller  in  Paris,  he 
may  have  feared  that  premature  divulgation  of  the  Austro- 
Bulgarian  scheme  would  evoke  a  British  protest  against  what 
was  likely  to  be  regarded  in  England  as  a  conspiracy  against 
the  regeneration  of  the  Ottoman  Empire.  The  exact  degree 
in  which  Aehrenthal  worked  in  secret  intelligence  with  King, 
then  Prince,  Ferdinand  of  Bulgaria  cannot  be  definitely 


252  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

ascertained.  Prince  Ferdinand  with  Princess  Eleonora  had 
paid  a  significant  visit  to  the  Austro-Hungarian  Court  at 
Budapest  on  the  previous  September  23,  a  week  after  the 
Buchlau  meeting,  and  had  been  received  with  royal  honours. 
It  is  certain  that  intercourse  between  the  Emperor  Francis 
Joseph  and  Prince  Ferdinand  was  not,  on  that  occasion, 
entirely  harmonious,  and  that  a  sharp  difference  of  opinion 
arose  between  them  in  connexion  with  the  Order  of  the 
Golden  Fleece,  which  Prince  Ferdinand  coveted  but  which 
the  Emperor  Francis  Joseph  considered  him  not  to  deserve 
on  account  of  his  strained  relations  with  the  Vatican.  (The 
distinction  was  subsequently  bestowed  in  somewhat  cavalier 
fashion  upon  King  Ferdinand  who  received  it  as  one  of  a  batch 
of  less  distinguished  candidates.)  Baron  von  Aehrenthal,  who 
had  vainly  advised  the  Bulgarian  Ruler  not  to  ask  for  the 
Golden  Fleece,  subsequently  declared  that  he  had  also  implored 
him  not  to  precipitate  the  proclamation  of  Bulgarian  inde- 
pendence— but  Baron  von  Aehrenthal's  testimony  can  scarcely 
be  regarded  as  conclusive.  More  weight  attaches  to  an 
assurance  transmitted  by  the  Emperor  Francis  Joseph  to  King 
Edward — in  answer  to  King  Edward's  deprecatory  reply  to 
the  Emperor's  letter  announcing  the  Annexation — that  the 
question  of  Bulgarian  independence  had  not  been  mentioned 
between  him  and  Prince  Ferdinand  at  Budapest.  But,  after 
the  Budapest  visit,  Prince  Ferdinand  went  to  Vienna  where  he 
conferred  repeatedly  with  Baron  von  Aehrenthal  and  presided 
over  a  Bulgarian  Cabinet  Council  secretly  held  in  the  Coburg 
palace  towards  the  end  of  September.  Nevertheless,  the  de- 
cision to  proclaim  the  independence  of  Bulgaria  was  not  finally 
communicated  to  the  Bulgarian  ministers  until  the  night  or 
early  morning  of  October  4—5,  when  another  Cabinet  meeting 
was  held  on  board  Prince  Ferdinand's  yacht  at  Rustchuk.  At 
mid-day  on  the  5th,  independence  was  proclaimed  at  Tirnovo. 
One  reason  for  King  Ferdinand's  haste  is  alleged  to  have  been 
his  fear  of  European  opposition,  and  it  is  conceivable  that,  when 
once  informed  that  the  annexation  of  Bosnia- Herzegovina  and 
the  proclamation  of  Bulgarian  independence  had  been  agreed 


FOREIGN  POLICY  253 

upon  in  principle  by  the  Austro-Hungarian  and  Russian 
Foreign  Ministers,  Prince  Ferdinand  decided  to  force  the 
pace  and  to  be  the  first  to  bolt  through  the  paper  walls  of 
the  Status  Quo.  Though  the  haste  of  Prince  Ferdinand 
may  perhaps  be  held  to  afford  a  plausible  explanation  of 
Baron  von  Aehrenthal's  failure  to  keep  faith  with  M.  Isvolsky, 
it  cannot  justify  his  untruthfulness  to  the  British  Ambassador, 
nor  can  his  subsequent  asseverations  be  taken  as  proof  that, 
until  October  4,  he  really  had  no  knowledge  that  Bulgarian 
independence  would  be  so  rapidly  proclaimed.  The  informa- 
tion and  the  instructions  he  gave  to  Count  Khevenhiiller  and 
other  Austro-Hungarian  ambassadors  as  early  as  October  I 
conclusively  prove  the  contrary. 

The  Annexation  was  received  with  an  outburst  of  joy  in 
Austria- Hungary,  with  almost  hostile  reserve  by  Germany, 
whom  Baron  von  Aehrenthal  had  scarcely  consulted,  and 
with  indignation  in  Russia,  England,  France  and  Italy. 
Austrians  felt  that  the  Monarchy  had  once  again  asserted 
its  political  individuality  and  its  power  of  independent 
decision.  Baron  von  Aehrenthal  became  popular  overnight 
and  was  christened  "  the  Austrian  Bismarck."  In  Russia, 
anti-Austrian  feeling  ran  high.  It  was  felt  that  M.  Isvolsky 
had  again  been  duped.  During  his  visits  to  Paris  and  London 
M.  Isvolsky  strove  indeed  to  repair  the  damage  done  by 
his  single-handed  agreement  with  Aehrenthal,  and  urged  that 
a  European  Conference  must  meet  to  deal  with  the  new 
situation  and  to  revise  the  Treaty  of  Berlin.  England  and 
France  accepted  the  idea  of  a  Conference,  though  England  is 
understood  to  have  deprecated  the  raising  of  questions  like 
that  of  the  Dardanelles  at  a  moment  when  the  new  regime 
in  Turkey  was  struggling  to  establish  itself.  Aehrenthal,  with 
the  support  of  German  diplomacy  which  had  been  obliged 
by  self-interest  to  fall  into  line  with  him,  resisted  the  idea 
of  a  Conference  unless  its  programme  should  be  strictly 
defined  beforehand  and  the  discussion  of  the  annexation  of 
Bosnia-Herzegovina  limited  to  a  mere  registration  of  the 
accomplished  fact.  Austro-Russian  relations  grew  more  and 


254  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

more  strained.  Mobilization  began  on  both  sides  of  the 
frontier.  Austria-Hungary  filled  Bosnia-Herzegovina  with 
troops  and  concentrated  a  large  force  in  Croatia-Slavonia 
and  Southern  Hungary.  In  the  North,  arrangements  for 
the  intervention  of  German  troops  were  contemplated,  so 
that  any  aggressive  movement  on  the  part  of  Russia  might 
bring  the  German  army  also  into  action.  In  Servia  excite- 
ment reached  a  delirious  pitch,  and  the  occupation  of 
Belgrade  by  Austria-Hungary  was  daily  expected.  Had  the 
Servian  army  been  at  the  moment  of  the  Annexation  as 
ready  for  war  as  it  was  towards  the  end  of  the  crisis,  the 
Servian  Government  would  undoubtedly  have  thrown  it  into 
Bosnia-Herzegovina  in  the  hope  of  raising  an  insurrection, 
which,  to  judge  by  the  precedents  of  1878  and  1882,  would 
have  created  a  formidable  embarrassment  for  the  Monarchy. 
Simultaneously  the  Young  Turkish  Committee  proclaimed  a 
boycott  of  Austro-Hungarian  merchandise  and  practically 
suspended  Austro-Hungarian  trade  with  Turkey  until  the 
spring  of  1909.  Under  the  pressure  of  this  situation, 
Aehrenthal  reluctantly  adopted  a  policy  he  had  previously 
scorned  and  came  to  terms  with  Turkey.  His  original  thesis 
had  been  that  Turkey  had  lost  nothing,  save  a  fictitious  suze- 
rainty, by  the  Annexation  and  had  been  amply  compensated 
for  this  loss  by  the  withdrawal  of  Austro-Hungarian  garrisons 
from  the  Sanjak  of  Novi  Bazar.  The  hostility  of  England 
and  Russia,  the  boycott  of  Austro-Hungarian  vessels  and 
merchandise  in  Turkish  ports,  the  danger  of  a  Turco-Servian 
alliance  against  the  Monarchy,  the  uncertain  attitude  of 
Italy,  which,  despite  a  secret  agreement  between  Aehrenthal 
and  the  Italian  Foreign  Minister,  Signer  Tittoni,  prevented 
the  despatch  of  a  single  warship  from  the  Adriatic  to  pro- 
tect Austro-Hungarian  commerce  in  the  Levant,  convinced 
Aehrenthal,  sorely  against  his  will,  that  he  must  ease  his 
position  and  legalize  the  title  of  the  Monarchy  to  Bosnia- 
Herzegovina  by  securing  Turkish  assent  to  the  Annexation. 
After  much  negotiation  Aehrenthal  waived  his  original 
demand  that  the  Turkish  boycott  should  cease  before 


FOREIGN  POLICY  255 

Austria-Hungary  could  contemplate  any  diplomatic  agree- 
ment with  the  Ottoman  Empire  and,  on  February  26,  1909, 
an  Austro  -  Turkish  Convention  was  concluded  on  the 
following  points  :  (i)  Austria-Hungary  expressly  renounced 
all  the  rights  acquired  in  regard  to  the  Sanjak  of  Novi  Bazar 
by  and  in  pursuance  of  the  Berlin  Treaty  ;  (2)  The  Austro- 
Turkish  Convention  of  April  21,  1879,  concerning  the 
Sanjak  and  the  occupation  of  Bosnia-Herzegovina  was 
abrogated  ;  Turkey  recognized  that  all  differences  of  view 
between  Austria-Hungary  and  the  Ottoman  Government  had 
ceased  ;  (3)  Natives  of  Bosnia-Herzegovina  resident  in  or 
emigrating  to  Turkey  were  to  retain  their  Ottoman 
nationality ;  (4)  The  liberty  and  exercise  of  the  Musulman 
religion  in  Bosnia-Herzegovina  were  guaranteed  and  it  was 
established  that  the  name  of  the  Sultan,  as  Khalif,  should 
continue  to  be  mentioned  in  the  public  prayers  of  Bosnian- 
Herzegovinian  Musulmans  ;  (5)  Austria- Hungary  agreed  to 
pay  the  Ottoman  Government  an  indemnity  of  ;£T2, 5 00,000, 
nominally  as  an  equivalent  for  the  Vakuf  properties  possessed 
by  Turkey  in  Bosnia  -  Herzegovina  ;  (6)  Austria -Hungary 
promised  to  conclude  a  treaty  of  commerce  with  Turkey, 
consented  to  an  increase  of  the  Turkish  customs  from  1 1  to 
1 5  per  cent  ad  valorem,  to  the  creation  of  Turkish  State 
monopolies  in  petroleum,  cigarette  paper,  matches,  alcohol, 
and  playing  cards  ;  (7)  Austria- Hungary  agreed  to  suppress 
her  post  offices  in  Turkey  as  soon  as  the  post  offices  of 
other  Powers  should  be  suppressed  ;  and  (8)  to  support  at 
a  European  Conference  or  otherwise  the  demand  of  Turkey 
that  the  Capitulations  be  replaced  by  International  Law. 

This  Convention  was  not  the  only  concession  which 
Baron  von  Aehrenthal  found  himself  obliged  to  make  before 
the  end  of  the  Annexation  Crisis.  Under  pressure  from 
Russia  and  Italy,  he  consented,  early  in  April  1909,  to 
modify  Article  XXIX.  of  the  Treaty  of  Berlin  in  such  manner 
as  to  suppress  clauses  5,  7,  8,  9,  10,  and  1 1  of  the  Article, 
which  limited  the  sovereignty  of  Montenegro  over  her  own 
littoral  and  gave  Austria  -  Hungary  the  right  to  police 


256  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

Montenegrin  waters.  Austria-Hungary  and  Italy  originally 
demanded  that  clause  6  of  Article  XXIX.  should  be  replaced 
by  a  clause  obliging  Montenegro  to  maintain  the  commercial 
character  of  the  Port  of  Antivari  and  declaring  that  no 
military  works  could  be  erected  there  ;  but,  on  representa- 
tions from  Russia  and  France,  who  urged  that  a  statement 
from  Montenegro  in  regard  to  the  commercial  character  of 
Antivari  would  be  sufficient,  Aehrenthal  consented  to  the 
abrogation  of  clause  6  also,  and  thus  opened  Antivari  and 
Montenegrin  waters  to  the  warships  of  all  nations.  The 
opening  of  Antivari  as  a  free  port  (October  23,  1909)  was 
celebrated  on  New  Year's  Day  1910  by  the  arrival  of  a 
French  naval  squadron,  which  had  been  sent  in  virtue  of  an 
agreement  between  France,  Russia,  and  Italy  to  greet  Prince 
Nicholas  on  having  attained  the  fiftieth  year  of  his  reign. 
In  the  following  August  an  Italian  squadron  with  the  King 
and  Queen  of  Italy  also  visited  Montenegrin  waters  to  attend 
the  Diamond  Jubilee  celebrations  and  to  be  present  at  the 
proclamation  of  Montenegro  as  a  Kingdom. 

These  concessions  on  the  part  of  Austria-Hungary  to 
Turkey  and  Montenegro  were  more  than  counterbalanced 
by  the  obduracy  with  which  Baron  von  Aehrenthal  refused 
any  kind  of  concession  to  Servia.  True,  Servia  had  no 
legitimate  grievance.  The  annexation  of  Bosnia- Herzegovina 
seemed,  indeed,  to  have  dispelled  the  Servian  dream  of 
obtaining  possession  of  the  Provinces,  but  the  dream  could 
not  be  claimed  as  a  "  moral  asset "  of  Servia  save  in  a  spirit 
of  hostility  towards  the  Monarchy.  Besides,  Aehrenthal 
suspected  Servia  of  fomenting  a  pan-Serb  agitation  in 
Croatia- Slavonia,  Bosnia -Herzegovina  and  Dalmatia.  The 
Hungarian  Government  had  been  engaged  since  1907  in 
an  attempt  to  reduce  Croatia-Slavonia  to  the  condition  of 
vassalage  in  which  those  provinces  had  been  kept  from  1868 
till  1906,  and  from  which  they  had  only  escaped  in  con- 
sequence of  a  coalition  between  the  chief  Croat  and  Serb 
parties  of  Dalmatia  and  Croatia-Slavonia  in  1905.  This 
Coalition  had  formed  a  righting  alliance  with  the  Hungarian 


FOREIGN   POLICY  257 

Coalition  of  opposition  parties  which  had  resisted  the 
Crown  from  the  end  of  1904  until  April  1906.  If  the 
Dynasty  and  the  Austro-Hungarian  Government  had  viewed 
with  displeasure  the  co-operation  of  Croats  and  Serbs, 
that  neutralized  the  ancient  Hapsburg  policy  of  playing 
off  the  one  Southern  Slav  element  against  the  other, 
they  had  been  thoroughly  alarmed  by  the  alliance  of  the 
Serbo-Croatian  and  the  Hungarian  Coalitions.  The  condition 
of  the  alliance  was  that  when  the  Hungarian  Coalition  should 
take  office  at  Budapest,  the  Serbo-Croatian  Coalition  should 
be  allowed  freedom  in  the  administration  of  Croatia-Slavonia. 
The  Hungarian  Coalition  came  to  terms  with  the  Crown  in 
April  1906  and,  notwithstanding  pressure  from  Vienna, 
fulfilled  its  bargain  with  the  Serbo-Croatians  by  establishing 
a  regime  of  comparative  liberty  in  Croatia-Slavonia.  For 
the  first  time  since  the  conclusion  of  the  Hungaro-Croatian 
Settlement  in  1868,  these  two  provinces  were  allowed  to 
breathe  freely  ;  but  the  execution  of  various  details  of  the 
alliance  between  the  two  Coalitions  met  with  so  much 
opposition  in  Vienna  that  Dr.  Wekerle,  the  Hungarian 
Coalition  Premier,  found  himself  unable  to  obtain  the 
Emperor's  sanction  to  the  appointment  of  two  patriotic 
Croatian  officials  at  Agram  whose  nomination  the  Serbo- 
Croatian  Coalition  considered  urgent.  The  Serbo-Croatians 
consequently  resolved  to  apply  pressure.  It  had  been 
announced  that  the  Emperor  would  attend  the  combined 
naval  and  military  manoeuvres  near  Ragusa  that  were  to  take 
place  in  the  autumn  of  1906.  The  Serbo-Croatian  leader, 
M.  Supilo,  informed  the  Hungarian  Premier  that  unless 
the  two  officials  were  appointed  immediately,  the  Emperor 
would  be  received  in  dead  silence  by  the  Serbo-Croatians 
of  Dalmatia.  The  threat  was  not  idle.  In  August  1906 
the  Lord-Lieutenancy  of  Dalmatia  at  Zara  discovered  that 
the  Slav  population  was  firmly  resolved  to  make  a  demon- 
stration of  silence  against  the  Emperor  should  he  attend  the 
manoeuvres  before  the  requisite  appointments  had  been  made 
in  Croatia.  An  official  was  despatched  in  hot  haste  to  warn 

S 


258  THE  HAPSBURG   MONARCHY 

the  Emperor's  aide-de-camp,  Count  Paar ;  and  a  few  days 
later  the  announcement  appeared  that,  as  the  Emperor  was 
a  bad  sailor,  the  Heir -Apparent,  Archduke  Francis  Fer- 
dinand, would  attend  the  manoeuvres  in  his  stead.  By  a 
strange  coincidence  the  appointments  of  the  Croatian 
officials  at  Agram  were  actually  sanctioned  on  the  day  of 
the  Archduke's  arrival  at  Ragusa,  but,  as  the  news  was  not 
known  to  the  population,  he  was  received  in  silence.  On 
visiting  the  municipality  in  the  evening  he  was  painfully 
impressed  by  the  absolute  stillness  of  the  immense  crowd 
that  filled  the  square  and  blocked  the  streets,  a  stillness  all 
the  more  significant  in  comparison  with  an  ovation  that  had 
been  given  to  Prince  Danilo  of  Montenegro  by  the  same 
population  in  the  afternoon.  Similar  frigidity  marked  the 
attitude  of  the  population  of  Trebinje  in  the  Herzegovina, 
which  the  Archduke  visited  officially  on  the  following  day. 
Efforts  had  been  made  by  the  Bosnian  officials  to  induce  the 
Serbs  of  Bosnia-Herzegovina  to  petition  the  Archduke  in 
favour  of  the  annexation  of  the  provinces,  but  the  reply  had 
been  given  that  the  Serbs  would  not  send  even  a  deputation 
to  greet  the  Archduke  should  there  be  any  question  of 
annexation.  In  these  circumstances  it  is  comprehensible 
that  the  Heir-Apparent  should  have  left  Dalmatia  with  an 
impression  the  reverse  of  favourable,  and  that  he  and  the 
Austro- Hungarian  Government  should  have  resolved  to 
combat  the  growing  sense  of  solidarity  among  the  Southern 
Slavs  of  the  Monarchy  and  between  them  and  those  beyond 
the  frontier.  As  usual,  "  Vienna  "  made  the  mistake  of  not 
believing  this  sense  of  solidarity  to  be  in  any  way  spon- 
taneous, and  of  attributing  it  exclusively  to  the  work  of 
Servian  or  pan-Serb  agitators.  Therefore,  when  an  indi- 
vidual named  Nastitch — who  had  received  a  subsidy  from 
the  Prince  of  Montenegro  after  turning  evidence  against  his 
accomplices  in  a  mysterious  conspiracy,  apparently  promoted 
by  Austro-Hungarian  agents  provocateurs,  against  the  life  of 
the  Prince — offered  the  Hungarian  Government,  in  1907, 
"  revelations  "  concerning  the  pan- Serb  propaganda,  which 


FOREIGN   POLICY  259 

he  alleged  to  be  carried  on  from  Belgrade  in  Croatia- 
Slavonia,  advantage  was  taken  of  his  "  information  "  to 
open  an  era  of  persecution  against  the  Southern  Slavs  of 
the  Monarchy.  On  the  strength  of  Nastitch's  allegations,  a 
High  Treason  prosecution  was  begun  at  Agram  against  more 
than  fifty  innocent  Croatians  and  Serbs.  The  trial  of  these 
victims,  which  became  a  European  scandal,  embittered  the 
feelings  of  the  Southern  Slavs  of  the  Monarchy  and  created 
an  atmosphere  favourable  to  the  propagation  of  the  Southern 
Slav  unitary  ideal.  It  is  unquestionable  that  the  Servian 
Government  profited  by  this  situation  and  that,  in  some  cases, 
its  emissaries  and  its  secret  funds  found  their  way  into 
Bosnia-Herzegovina  ;  but  the  Austro-Hungarian  authorities 
grossly  exaggerated  the  extent  of  Servian  political  and 
pecuniary  influence  and  underestimated  the  natural  tendency 
of  members  of  one  and  the  same  race  to  draw  together  at 
moments  of  stress  or  persecution.  In  these  circumstances, 
the  Austro-Hungarian  authorities  became  the  willing  dupes, 
if  not  the  accomplices,  of  other  unscrupulous  informers  who 
supplied  them  with  "  proofs  "  that  there  existed  a  widespread 
plot  among  the  Serbs  and  Croatians  of  the  Monarchy  in  con- 
junction with  the  Serbs  of  Bosnia-Herzegovina  and  with  the 
Servians  of  the  Kingdom,  to  establish  a  "  Greater  Servia  "  at 
the  expense  of  Austria-Hungary.  Baron  von  Aehrenthal 
believed  or  affected  to  believe  in  the  plot,  instructed  Austro- 
Hungarian  Ambassadors  to  draw  the  attention  of  foreign 
governments  to  it  and  to  inform  them  that  it  had  driven 
Austria  -  Hungary  to  annex  Bosnia  -  Herzegovina.  The 
"  proofs  "  of  the  existence  of  the  plot  consisted  of  docu- 
ments fabricated  partly  under  the  supervision  of  a  member 
of  the  Austro-Hungarian  Legation  at  Belgrade  and  partly  with 
the  help  of  the  police  at  Agram  and  Semlin.  It  is  difficult 
to  resist  the  suspicion  that  these  "  proofs,"  of  which  several 
scores  were  accumulated  by  the  Austro-Hungarian  Foreign 
Office  and  by  the  General  Staff,  were  intended  to  constitute 
an  overwhelming  case  against  Servia  in  the  event  of  an 
Austro-Servian  war.  Early  in  1909  when  war,  or,  as  the 


260  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

Austrian  expression  ran,  a  "  punitive  expedition "  against 
Servia  was  believed  to  be  imminent,  a  selection  of  these 
"  proofs "  was  placed  at  the  disposal  of  Dr.  Friedjung,  who 
based  upon  them  a  series  of  articles  intended  to  be  a  war- 
blast  In  these  articles,  of  which  the  first  was  published  on 
March  25,  1909,  Dr.  Friedjung  accused  M.  Supilo,  the 
Serbo-Croatian  leader,  and  several  other  prominent  Serbs 
and  Croatians  of  the  Monarchy,  of  corrupt  and  treasonable 
intercourse  with  the  Servian  Government.  The  publication 
led  to  the  famous  Friedjung  trial  of  December  I9O9,1  in 
which  the  "  proofs "  were  demonstrated  to  be  clumsy 
forgeries  ;  and  to  the  disclosure  made  by  Professor  Masaryk 
in  the  Delegations  of  1 9 1  o  that  the  forgeries  had  been  largely 
the  work  of  a  man  named  Vasitch  who  had  been  employed 
for  the  purpose  of  forging  them  by  Captain  von  Sviento- 
chowski  of  the  Austro- Hungarian  Legation  at  Belgrade. 
During  the  Friedjung  trial,  Count2  Aehrenthal  informed  a 
foreign  visitor  that  he  had  never  believed  in  the  authenticity 
of  the  "  proofs  "  of  the  conspiracy  ;  and  he  hastened,  as  soon 
as  their  veritable  character  was  revealed,  to  disavow  them  in 
his  official  organ,  the  Fremdenblatt.  He  appeared  insensible 
to  the  discredit  which  the  exposure  of  his  methods  had  cast 
upon  the  Monarchy.  His  principles  that  all  is  fair  in  diplo- 
macy and  that  "  accomplished  facts  are  the  most  conclusive 
proofs,"  doubtless  explain  his  conduct ;  and  but  for  the 
withdrawal  of  Russian  support  from  Servia  after  the  inter- 
vention of  the  German  Ambassador  at  St.  Petersburg  on 
March  24,  1909 — the  day  before  the  publication  of  the 
Friedjung  article — Aehrenthal's  methods  might  have  been 
placed  beyond  possibility  of  detection  by  an  Austro- 
Hungarian  invasion  of  Servia  and  by  the  execution,  under 
martial  law,  of  the  Serbo-Croatians  whom  the  forgeries 
charged  with  high  treason.  But,  according  to  a  homely 
Italian  proverb,  "  II  diavolo  fa  le  pentole  ma  non  i  coperchi." 3 

1  Cf.  pp.  100-105. 

2  Baron  von  Aehrenthal  was  raised  to  the  rank  of  Count  on  the  Emperor 
Francis  Joseph's  birthday,  August  18,  1909. 

3  "  The  lids  of  the  Devil's  saucepans  do  not  fit." 


FOREIGN  POLICY  261 

It  is  a  singular  but  perhaps  not  quite  fortuitous  circumstance 
that  Germany,  who  secured  the  capitulation  of  M.  Isvolsky  to 
Austria-Hungary,  should  thereby  have  rendered  her  ally  and 
Aehrenthal  himself  a  signal  disservice. 

The  attitude  of  Germany  towards  Austria -Hungary 
during  the  Annexation  Crisis  throws  vivid  light  upon  the 
character  of  German  diplomacy.  Aehrenthal  had  never  been 
quite  popular  at  Berlin.  He  was  suspected,  not  without 
reason,  of  seeking  to  obtain  for  Austria-Hungary  a  large 
measure  of  diplomatic  independence,  and  of  conceiving 
Austro-German  relations  as  being  based  on  the  principle  of 
give  and  take,  not,  as  some  German  statesmen  had  imagined, 
on  the  principle  of  "take"  alone.  He  had  neglected  to 
inform  Germany  of  his  plans  for  the  annexation  of  Bosnia- 
Herzegovina  until  the  last  moment,  and  had  thus  placed 
German  diplomacy  in  an  awkward  position  at  Constantinople 
where  Germany  was  made  to  appear  the  accomplice  of  a 
State  that  had  struck  a  heavy  blow  at  Turkish  prestige. 
Prince  Billow,  the  German  Chancellor,  resented  Aehrenthal's 
independent  action  and  hesitated  for  some  weeks  as  to  the 
course  to  be  pursued.  It  is  on  record  that  his  attitude  was 
finally  determined  by  the  arguments  and  expostulations  of 
the  late  Herr  von  Holstein — long  the  Eminence  grise  of 
the  German  Foreign  Office — who  emerged  from  retirement 
to  entreat  the  Chancellor  not  to  leave  Austria-Hungary  in 
the  lurch.  Otherwise,  argued  Holstein,  the  Austro-German 
Alliance  would  be  ruined.  Aehrenthal  had  shrewdly  counted 
upon  this  consideration  and  had  reckoned  that,  in  her  own 
interest,  Germany  would  be  obliged  to  support  him.  Yet 
he,  who  was  cunning  above  all  things  and  proud  of  his 
cunning,  left  out  of  account  the  cunning  of  Prussian 
diplomacy.  Germany  supported  him  throughout  the  crisis 
but  at  the  decisive  moment  when  the  question  of  peace 
or  war  was  on  the  point  of  decision  and  when  Aehrenthal 
believed  himself,  in  view  of  the  military  unreadiness  of 
Russia,  to  be  about  to  compel  M.  Isvolsky  to  recognize  the 
Annexation  and  to  abandon  Servia,  Germany  instructed  her 


262  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

Ambassador  at  St.  Petersburg  to  inform  M.  Isvolsky  that 
in  case  of  war  with  Austria- Hungary,  Russia  would  also 
have  to  face  the  armed  strength  of  Germany.  The  exact 
terms  and  circumstances  of  this  intervention  have  never 
been  revealed.  Malicious  tongues  have  suggested  that 
Russia,  having  decided  not  to  risk  a  European  war,  invited 
Germany,  directly  or  indirectly,  to  present  a  mock  ultimatum 
in  order  that  Russia  might  yield  to  Germany  rather  than  to 
Austria- Hungary,  her  principal  antagonist.  However  this 
may  be,  it  is  a  fact  that  forty-eight  hours  before  the  German 
intervention,  the  Russian  military  authorities  had  resolved 
not  to  make  war.  M.  Isvolsky  always  displayed  reticence 
in  regard  to  the  exact  circumstances  of  the  incident,  which 
he  described  to  those  entitled  to  enquire  as  "  une  mise- 
en-demeure  pe"remptoire."  But  whether  tragi- comedy  or 
quasi-tragedy,  the  Russian  submission  was  made,  and  Count 
Pourtales,  the  German  Ambassador  to  the  Russian  Court, 
was  able  to  telegraph  to  Berlin,  on  March  24,  1909,  M. 
Isvolsky's  declaration  "  that  Russia  would  formally  declare 
her  unreserved  adhesion  to  the  abolition  of  Article  XXV. 
(concerning  Bosnia-Herzegovina)  of  the  Treaty  of  Berlin  in 
case  Austria-Hungary  should  apply  for  Russian  recognition 
of  the  Austro-Turkish  Convention." l  The  news  reached 
Aehrenthal  late  on  March  24.  An  attempt  was  at  once 
made  to  stop  the  publication  of  Dr.  Friedjung's  "  War- 
trumpet  "  article  in  the  Neue  Freie  Presse  on  the  following 
morning,  but  the  story  runs  that  the  printing  presses  were 
already  in  motion  and  the  first  edition  of  the  journal  printed. 
The  Friedjung  trial  with  its  exposure  of  Aehrenthal's 
methods  thus  became  inevitable.  On  March  2  5  Baron  von 
Aehrenthal  instructed  the  German  Ambassador  in  Berlin  to 
express  his  "  grateful  satisfaction  "  to  Prince  Bulow  for  the 
action  of  Count  Pourtales — his  only  recorded  expression  of 
thanks  for  the  "  service  "  rendered.  Aehrenthal  felt  that  by 
snatching  from  his  brow  at  the  last  moment  the  crown  of 

1  Austro- Hungarian  Red-Book,  1909,  "  Diplomatische  Aktenstiicke  betreffend 
Bosnien  und  die  Herzegovina,  Oktober  1908  bis  Juni  1909,"  p.  113. 


FOREIGN  POLICY  263 

laurel  he  believed  himself  about  to  receive,  Germany  had 
"  got  level "  with  him  for  his  independent  conduct  at  the 
beginning  of  the  crisis.  So  deep  was  his  resentment  of 
German  action  that,  even  after  the  Emperor  William  had,  in 
a  famous  speech  at  the  Vienna  Rathaus  on  September  20, 
1910,  claimed  Austro-Hungarian  gratitude  for  the  help 
Germany  had  given  "  with  Nibelungen  faithfulness "  "  in 
shining  armour  "  to  her  ally  in  the  hour  of  need,  Aehrenthal's 
only  acknowledgment  was  contained  in  the  colourless  phrase, 
"  Recent  events  have  shown  that  our  alliances  have  a  real 
value."  This  phrase,  which  formed  the  principal  feature  of 
Aehrenthal's  statement  to  the  Delegations  on  October  13, 
1910,  irritated  the  Austrian-German  parties  and  served  to 
nourish  the  attacks  and  intrigues  constantly  directed  against 
Aehrenthal  up  to  the  eve  of  his  death  by  the  German 
Ambassador  in  Vienna  and  by  the  press  and  politicians 
under  German  diplomatic  influence. 

Aehrenthal  retained  office  until  his  death  in  February 
1912.  During  his  later  years  at  the  Ballplatz  his  policy 
underwent  a  notable  change.  Partly  on  account  of  fail- 
ing health  and  partly  because  experience  had  corrected 
his  previously  inadequate  knowledge  of  the  European 
situation,  he  remained  on  the  defensive  and  became  by 
degrees  an  element  of  stability  in  Europe.  The  Annexa- 
tion Crisis  having  been  closed  by  the  decision  of  Servia 
to  bow  to  the  inevitable  and  to  declare  that  "  her  rights 
had  not  been  affected  by  the  fait  accompli  created  in  Bosnia- 
Herzegovina  and  that  she  would  consequently  conform 
herself  to  the  decision  of  the  Powers  in  regard  to  Article 
XXV.  of  the  Treaty  of  Berlin,"  Aehrenthal  was  free  to 
pursue  a  policy  less  hazardous  and  more  in  accordance  with 
the  veritable  interests  of  the  Monarchy.  The  submission  of 
Servia,  without  other  compensation  than  the  vague  promise 
of  a  commercial  treaty,  was  largely  due  to  the  conciliatory 
influence  of  England  at  Belgrade.  Though  Sir  Edward 
Grey  was  under  no  obligation  to  support  Servia  and  had  only 
promised  the  Servian  Foreign  Minister,  M.  Milovanovitch,  to 


264  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

advocate  Servian  claims  "  as  long  as  they  should  be  seconded 
by  Russia,"  the  British  Foreign  Secretary  was  better  than 
his  word  and  lent  his  good  offices  to  Servia  even  after 
Russia  had  given  way.  He  obtained  a  modification  of  the 
humiliating  formula  to  which  Austria- Hungary  demanded 
Servian  adhesion  and  saved  the  Servian  Government  from 
the  bitter  feeling  that  it  had  been  abandoned  by  all  the 
Great  Powers.  After  the  crisis,  Austro-Hungarian  relations 
with  England  gradually  grew  less  strained,  thanks  in  part  to 
Aehrenthal's  tardy  recognition  that  England  counts  for 
something  in  European  politics,  but  chiefly  owing  to  the  old 
friendship  between  King  Edward  and  the  Emperor  Francis 
Joseph.  The  improvement  would  have  been  more  rapid  had 
not  Aehrenthal  prevented  a  post-Annexation  meeting  between 
King  Edward  and  the  Emperor  at  Ischl  in  August  1909. 
Nevertheless,  during  the  King's  last  stay  at  Marienbad  in  that 
year,  an  exchange  of  courtesies  took  place  between  him  and 
the  Emperor ;  and  an  amicable  controversy  between  leading 
organs  of  the  Austrian  and  British  press  resulted  in  a 
definition  of  the  British  standpoint  in  regard  to  Austria- 
Hungary  which  subsequently  found  King  Edward's  entire 
approval.  That  definition  ran  :  "  The  idea  that  it  has  been 
the  object  of  Great  Britain  to  detach  other  countries  from 
their  alliances,  or  to  surround  Germany  with  a  ring  of  semi- 
hostile  States,  is  one  of  those  perversions  of  the  truth  which 
have  been  too  readily  propagated  in  Germany  and  accepted 
in  Austria-Hungary.  British  policy  has  been  inspired  by 
an  honest  and  wholly  non-offensive  desire  to  remove  points 
of  friction  between  England  and  other  countries.  This 
desire  animates  it  still  and  lies  behind  the  wish  that  relations 
with  Austria-Hungary  may  regain  their  former  cordiality. 
But  clearness  is  an  essential  condition  of  the  fulfilment  of 
this  wish  ;  and  for  the  avoidance  of  misunderstanding  it  is 
eminently  desirable  to  know  whether,  in  their  relations  with 
Austria-Hungary,  British  statesmen  will  have  to  reckon 
with  a  Power  conscious  of  its  own  individuality  or  with  a 
Power  that,  at  every  critical  juncture  will  feel  bound,  over 


FOREIGN   POLICY  265 

and  above  its  obligations  as  an  ally,  to  identify  itself  with 
another  Power  towards  which  British  intentions  are  not  less 
amicable,  but  in  dealing  with  which  Great  Britain  has  a 
different  class  of  interests  to  safeguard."  * 

While  Anglo-Austrian  relations  thus  tended  to  regain 
some  degree  of  cordiality,  Austro-Russian  relations  were 
further  envenomed  by  an  acrimonious  controversy  between 
Count  Aehrenthal  and  M.  Isvolsky.  Accompanied  by  a 
press  campaign  on  both  sides  and  spiced  with  threats  of 
the  publication  of  secret  documents,  the  controversy  grad- 
ually acquired  such  a  degree  of  animosity  that  potent 
influences  had  to  be  brought  to  bear  to  silence  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  Minister.  Too  passionate  and  resentful  to  be  a 
good  controversialist,  Aehrenthal  was  gradually  driven  into 
a  position  from  which  he  could  only  hope  to  escape  by  the 
sacrifice  of  secrets  of  State.  In  a  telegram  to  the  editor 
of  the  Novoe  Vremya  on  November  8,  1909,  Aehrenthal 
actually  suggested  that  both  parties  should  publish  all  their 
documents — and  drew  from  Berlin  strong  disapproval  of  a 
suggestion  that  would  have  been  justifiable  only  on  the  eve 
of  war.  The  controversy  then  lapsed  but  its  effects  remained 
and  continued  to  encumber  Austro-Hungarian  action  down 
to  and  throughout  the  recent  Balkan  crisis.  Aehrenthal's 
management  of  the  Annexation  and  his  subsequent  conduct 
placed  indeed  a  heavy  mortgage  upon  the  diplomatic  freedom 
of  the  Monarchy — a  mortgage  not  yet  entirely  paid  off. 

In  other  respects,  and  particularly  in  his  dealings  with 
France  and  Italy,  Aehrenthal  was  more  fortunate.  Even 
during  the  Annexation  Crisis  he  contrived  to  retain  with 
France  relations  more  cordial  than  those  with  England  and 
Russia.  In  this  respect  he  reverted  to  the  tradition  of 
Andrassy,  who  had  declined  to  direct  the  Austro-German 
Alliance  of  1 879  equally  against  France  and  Russia.  During 
several  phases  of  the  Morocco  conflict  between  France  and 
Germany,  Aehrenthal  frankly  dissociated  himself  from  the 
German  standpoint,  especially  in  regard  to  the  incident  of  the 

1  The  Times,  August  30,  1909,  leading  article,  p.  7. 


266  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

Casablanca  deserters.  A  desire  not  to  be  entirely  at  the 
mercy  of  Germany  in  a  European  crisis  was,  in  part,  the 
motive  for  this  conduct,  but  his  main  purpose  was  to  gain  for 
Austria- Hungary  free  access  to  the  French  money  market. 
In  this  he  failed.  France,  considering  that  Austro- Hungarian 
political  dependence  upon  Germany  is  too  marked  to  allow 
the  Monarchy  real  freedom  of  decision,  and  that  the  relations 
between  Austro- Hungarian  and  German  Banks  are  so  close 
as  to  place  money  lent  to  the  Monarchy  practically  at  the 
disposal  of  Germany,  declined  repeatedly  to  sanction  the 
floating  of  Austrian  or  Hungarian  loans  on  the  Paris  market. 
Aehrenthal  resented  this  refusal  as  at  once  unjust  and 
impolitic.  He  argued  that  France  could  not  expect  him  to 
be  independent  of  Germany  unless  she  provided  him  with  the 
necessary  means,  and  argued  that  her  attitude  would  compel 
him  to  identify  himself  more  closely  than  ever  with  Germany. 
But  the  French  Government  shrewdly  appreciated  the  circum- 
stance that  Germany  would  have  demanded  the  immediate 
dismissal  of  Aehrenthal  had  he  made  a  serious  attempt 
to  gain  independence,  and  that  his  action  in  placing  a 
temporary  veto  upon  the  expropriation  of  the  Prussian 
Poles  and  upon  the  German  scheme  for  levying  navigation 
dues  on  the  Elbe,  had  already  aroused  such  suspicion  and 
resentment  at  Berlin  as  to  make  his  position  precarious. 
Aehrenthal  was,  indeed,  in  many  respects  a  tragic  figure. 
He  aimed  sincerely  at  restoring  the  prestige  and  marking 
the  diplomatic  individuality  of  the  Monarchy  in  Europe,  but 
he  came  to  his  task  inadequately  equipped,  burdened  with  an 
erroneous  conception  of  international  dynamics  and  handi- 
capped by  training  and  temperament.  Like  many  Austro- 
Hungarian  diplomatists,  he  knew  little  of  the  internal  affairs 
of  the  Monarchy  and  sought  to  go  his  way  regardless  of  them. 
He  thus  allowed  the  Austrian  and  the  Hungarian  Govern- 
ments to  undermine  what  ought  to  have  been  the  twin  bases 
of  a  successful  Southern  Slav  and  of  a  more  successful 
Italian  policy.  He  died  worn  out  by  a  struggle  against  the 
enmities  he  had  aroused,  and  bequeathed  to  the  Monarchy 


FOREIGN  POLICY  267 

little  more  than  the  memory  of  the  hours  of  conscious  pride 
it  had  enjoyed  during  the  Annexation  Crisis.  Viewed 
retrospectively,  the  brightest  side  of  Aehrenthal's  work  seems 
to  have  been  his  later  treatment  of  Italy  and  his  perception 
of  the  truth  that  a  confidential  relationship  with  Italy  is  the 
only  practical  guarantee  of  such  diplomatic  independence  as 
the  Monarchy  may  hope,  in  present  conditions,  to  achieve. 
This  truth,  to  which  Kalnoky  had  been  blind  and  which 
Gotuchowski  only  learned  during  his  last  two  years  of  office, 
Aehrenthal  comprehended  within  eighteen  months  of  his 
appointment  to  the  Ballplatz.  As  long  as  he  believed  in 
the  possibility  of  reviving  the  League  of  the  Three  Emperors, 
he  regarded  Italy,  like  England,  as  an  almost  negligible 
quantity  ;  and,  at  the  outset,  he  regarded  Italy,  in  so  far  as 
he  took  her  into  consideration,  as  a  troublesome  member  of  the 
European  family.  In  April  1907  his  attitude  was  indicated 
by  an  unofficial  message  which  he  caused  to  be  conveyed  to 
the  Italian  Foreign  Minister,  Signor  Tittoni,  whom  he  thanked 
for  friendly  declarations  made  in  the  Italian  Chamber,  but 
added  that  he  (Aehrenthal)  would  appreciate  Italian  friendli- 
ness still  more  if  the  character  of  Italian  diplomacy  at 
Belgrade  were  in  conformity  with  the  public  statements  of 
the  Foreign  Minister.  This  characteristically  Aehrenthalian 
message  was  delivered  to  Signor  Tittoni  on  the  evening 
of  April  1 8,  1907,  after  his  return  from  the  interview 
between  King  Edward  and  King  Victor  Emmanuel  at  Gaeta. 
Signor  Tittoni,  in  reply,  expressed  surprise  that  his  Austro- 
Hungarian  colleague  should  be  so  misinformed  in  regard  to 
the  action  of  Italian  diplomacy  at  Belgrade  ;  allowed  his 
visitor  to  convince  himself  of  Aehrenthal's  mistake  by 
showing  him  the  instructions  given  to  and  a  recent  report 
received  from  the  Belgrade  Legation  ;  and  requested  him  to 
inform  Baron  von  Aehrenthal  of  their  contents  and  to  give 
him  the  following  significant  message.  "  Tell  Aehrenthal  from 
me,"  said  Signor  Tittoni,  "  that  if  he  really  wishes  to  promote 
good  relations  between  Austria- Hungary  and  Italy,  he  had 
better  pay  me  here  in  Rome  the  visit  he  has  constantly 


268  THE   HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

expressed  his  intention  of  making.  Sooner  or  later  the 
question  of  King  Humbert's  unreturned  visit  to  Vienna  will 
have  to  be  settled,  and  it  would  be  a  good  beginning  if  the 
Austro- Hungarian  Foreign  Minister  would  visit  me  at  Rome. 
Tell  Baron  von  Aehrenthal  further  that  my  relations  with  the 
Vatican  are  good  enough  to  enable  me  to  assure  him  that 
he  will  meet  with  no  difficulties  from  that  quarter." 

This  message  was  duly  delivered  ;  but  Aehrenthal — who 
had  in  the  meantime  visited  Prince  Billow  at  Berlin  and 
had,  probably  at  the  instance  of  Germany,  made  his  pro- 
posal to  Russia  for  an  entente  d  quatre  designed  to  exclude 
England  and  Italy  from  a  share  in  the  settlement  of  Near 
Eastern  questions — received  it  in  silence  and  avoided  any 
discussion  of  Austro-Italian  relations  beyond  complaining  that 
the  visit  paid  by  King  Victor  Emmanuel  and  Signer  Tittoni  to 
Athens  on  April  8,  1 907,  had  encouraged  the  activity  of  Greek 
bands  in  Macedonia  and  had  caused  the  Greeks  to  believe 
that  Italy  was  on  their  side,  notwithstanding  the  straight- 
forward language  which  Aehrenthal  admitted  King  Victor 
Emmanuel  and  Signor  Tittoni  to  have  used  in  conversation 
with  the  King  of  Greece  and  his  Ministers.  Through  another 
channel  the  Italian  Foreign  Minister  soon  received  informa- 
tion that  Aehrenthal  would  not  visit  him  at  Rome.  When 
in  July  1907  Aehrenthal  paid  his  visits  to  Signor  Tittoni  at 
Desio  and  to  King  Victor  Emmanuel  at  Racconigi,  he 
already  knew  that  neither  his  dream  of  reviving  the  Three 
Emperors'  League  nor  the  scheme  for  an  Austro-Russo- 
Franco-German  entente  would  be  feasible,  and  he  therefore 
addressed  himself  to  the  cultivation  of  Italian  goodwill 
with  greater  sincerity  than  he  had  previously  displayed. 

Save  at  rare  intervals,  the  character  of  Austro-Italian 
relations  since  the  formation  of  the  Triple  Alliance  in  1882 
had  been  "  allied  and  inimical "  rather  than  "  allied  and 
friendly."  Prior  to  the  alliance,  Italy  had  wavered  between 
France  and  the  Central  Empires,  seeking  to  gain  the 
advantages  of  friendship  all  round  without  incurring  marked 
hostility  in  any  quarter.  Italian  neutrality  during  the 


FOREIGN  POLICY  269 

Franco-German  War  had,  however,  left  upon  French  minds 
an  impression  of  ingratitude  which  the  high-hearted  ex- 
pedition of  Garibaldi  and  its  prowess  at  Dijon  had  failed 
to  efface.  French  Catholic  feeling  had,  moreover,  been 
exasperated  by  the  Italian  invasion  of  the  Pontifical  State 
and  the  capture  of  Rome.  Up  to  the  "Seize  Mai"  1877 
Italy  feared  a  French  attempt  to  restore  the  Temporal 
Power  of  the  Pope  ;  and,  in  France,  purely  Clerical  under- 
takings like  the  Legion  d'Antibes  and  the  Zouaves  Pontificaux 
found  indirect  support  in  the  conviction  of  many  French 
politicians  that  Napoleon  III.  had  sinned  grievously  against 
French  interests  in  laying  the  foundations  of  Italian  Unity 
at  Magenta  and  Solferino,  and  in  helping  to  create  for  France 
a  formidable  rival  in  the  Mediterranean.  Italy  consequently 
sought  a  safeguard  against  French  ill-will  by  courting  the 
favour  of  Austria -Hungary,  Germany,  and  particularly  of 
Bismarck.  Accompanied  by  his  Ministers  (Minghetti  and 
Visconti  Venosta)  King  Victor  Emmanuel  visited  both 
Vienna  and  Berlin  in  September  1873.  Bismarck,  then 
in  the  thick  of  the  Kulturkampf,  complained  that  Italy  had 
by  her  Law  of  Guarantees  and  her  acquisition  of  Papal 
territory  rendered  the  Holy  See  inviolable.  He  proposed 
that  Italy  should  allow  a  German  detachment  to  land  at 
Civitavecchia  (where,  to  the  annoyance  of  Italy,  the  French 
Cruiser  Ortnoque  had  been  lying  at  the  disposal  of  the  Pope 
since  1870)  and  march  through  to  Rome  in  order  to  settle 
the  Kulturkampf  by  force  of  arms.  The  Italian  Ministers 
wisely  rejected  the  proposal,  and  had  subsequently  the 
satisfaction  of  seeing  the  Or/noque  recalled  by  Marshal 
MacMahon,  who  had  succeeded  Thiers  as  President  of  the 
French  Republic.  Italo-Austrian  and  Italo-German  rela- 
tions were,  however,  again  improved  by  the  return  visit  of 
the  Emperor  Francis  Joseph  to  Victor  Emmanuel  in  April 
1875,  and  by  that  of  the  Emperor  William  I.  to  Milan  in 
the  following  October.  On  the  former  occasion  the  Emperor 
Francis  Joseph,  who  was  accompanied  by  Andrassy,  displayed 
rare  magnanimity  by  drinking  to  the  prosperity  of  United 


270  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

Italy  in  the  very  city  which,  only  nine  years  previously,  had 
been  the  last  stronghold  of  Austrian  power  in  Italy.  The 
evolution  towards  an  understanding,  if  not  an  alliance, 
between  Italy  and  the  Central  European  Powers  was  dis- 
turbed on  March  18,  1876,  by  the  fall  of  the  Italian  Right, 
which  had  believed  the  support  of  the  two  conservative 
Central  Powers  to  be  indispensable  to  the  Young  Italian 
Kingdom.  The  advent  of  the  Left,  or  Radical  Party, 
deprived  Italy  of  the  guidance  of  her  most  experienced 
statesmen,  and  placed  her  fortunes  in  the  hands  of  men 
whose  monarchical  sentiments  were  not  then  thought  to  be 
above  suspicion,  and  whose  leanings  towards  Republican 
France  deprived  them  of  German  and  Austro-Hungarian 
confidence.  Italy  became  practically  isolated,  and  drifted 
without  diplomatic  leadership  towards  the  Near  Eastern 
crisis  of  1 877—78  and  the  Congress  of  Berlin.  The  return  of 
the  Italian  Foreign  Minister,  Count  Corti,  from  Berlin  with 
"  clean  " — a  euphemism  for  "  empty  " — hands,  caused  general 
disappointment  in  the  Peninsula,  while  Crispi's  irate  but  pro- 
phetic ejaculation  in  the  Chamber,  "  Much  good  may  they  do 
her,  these  ill-gotten  provinces,"  revealed  the  strength  of  Italian 
feeling  against  the  Austro-Hungarian  occupation  of  Bosnia- 
Herzegovina.  But  Italy  continued  to  waver  until  Bismarck's 
master-stroke — the  French  occupation  of  Tunis — drove  the 
Italian  Government  in  1881  once  more  to  approach  the 
Central  Empires.  Tentative  negotiations  for  an  alliance 
began.  Bismarck  feigned  reluctance  to  admit  Italy  to  the 
Austro-German  Alliance  and  met  Italian  suggestions  with  a 
reminder  that  the  way  to  Berlin  lay  through  Vienna.  But 
the  Austro-Hungarian  Foreign  Minister,  Kalnoky,  had  been 
irritated  by  the  Italian  Irredentist  manifestations,  and  was, 
as  a  Clerical,  disinclined  to  guarantee  to  Italy  the  possession 
of  the  former  States  of  the  Church.  The  Italian  Foreign 
Minister,  Mancini,  was  for  his  part  reluctant  to  guarantee 
Austrian  possession  of  Trent  and  Trieste.  Italy  found  her- 
self in  a  position  of  extreme  delicacy.  The  advantages  and 
disadvantages  of  an  alliance  with  Austria -Hungary  and 


FOREIGN  POLICY  271 

Germany  counterbalanced  each  other.  An  understanding 
with  France  and  a  continuance  of  the  Irredentist  movement 
could  not  fail  to  arouse  Austro- German  hostility;  but 
alliance  with  the  Central  European  Powers  would  inevitably 
draw  upon  Italy  the  hostility  of  France.  In  the  one  case 
as  in  the  other  Italy  could  count  upon  the  moral  support  of 
England  but  could  not  make  of  British  friendship  the  basis 
of  a  Continental  policy.  Resentment  against  France  on 
account  of  Tunis  would  scarcely  have  sufficed  to  turn  the 
scale  had  not  the  question  of  the  Temporal  Power  enabled 
Bismarck  to  grasp  the  tongue  of  the  balance  and  pull  it 
towards  Berlin. 

Since  1878  a  new  Pope,  Gioacchino  Pecci,  better  known 
as  Leo  XIII.,  had  occupied  the  chair  of  St.  Peter.  Thanks 
to  the  firmness  and  circumspection  of  Crispi,  the  Conclave 
had  passed  off  without  other  incident  than  an  Italian  warning 
to  the  Sacred  College  that,  if  it  left  Rome  to  elect  the 
successor  of  Pius  IX.,  the  Vatican  would  be  occupied  by 
Italian  troops  and  be  lost  to  the  Church.  The  Conclave 
consequently  preferred  to  remain  in  the  Vatican.  But  in 
the  summer  of  1881  disorders  had  occurred  during  the 
transfer  of  the  remains  of  Pius  IX.  from  St.  Peter's  to  San 
Lorenzo.  The  Vatican  had  arranged  the  procession  so  as 
to  irritate  Italian  feeling  and  the  Depretis-Mancini  Cabinet 
weakly  played  into  the  adversary's  hands  by  neglecting 
precautions  for  the  maintenance  of  public  order.  Tumults 
consequently  arose,  and  the  world  soon  rang  with  a  Papal 
protest  against  "  the  miserable  position  of  the  Holy  See." 
Bismarck,  weary  of  the  Kulturkampf  and  already  on  the 
highroad  to  Canossa,  was  anxious  to  conciliate  German 
Catholic  feeling.  He  therefore  began  a  campaign  in  favour 
of  the  independence  of  the  Papacy.  Supported  by  Austria, 
he  mooted  the  idea  that  Italy  might  be  called  upon  to  revise 
the  Law  of  Guarantees  in  accordance  with  Catholic  exigencies 
and  that  an  International  Conference  might  be  convened 
to  regulate  the  position  of  the  Pope.  His  emissaries  even 
suggested  to  the  Pope  that  the  Head  of  the  Church  would 


272  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

find  at  Fulda  in  Germany  a  free  and  tranquil  refuge  from 
the  storms  and  the  humiliations  of  Rome.  Italy,  with 
her  army  and  navy  in  disorder,  her  relations  with  France 
precarious  and  her  home  affairs  in  a  state  of  chaos,  could 
scarcely  have  resisted  Austro-German  pressure,  had  it  been 
seriously  applied.  Recognizing  instinctively  that  the  Italian 
character  of  the  Papacy  and  of  the  Roman  Catholic  hierarchy 
is  one  of  the  greatest  Italian  national  assets,  the  Govern- 
ment turned  more  decidedly  towards  Austria -Hungary  and 
Germany  and  hastily  arranged  the  visit  of  King  Humbert 
and  Queen  Margherita  to  Vienna  in  October  1881  without 
stipulating  any  conditions  for  a  return  of  the  visit  at  Rome. 
Bismarck,  as  usual,  treated  Italy  with  arrogance,  omitted 
from  the  Imperial  message  to  the  Reichstag  in  November 
1 88 1  all  reference  to  King  Humbert's  visit  to  Vienna, 
and  continued  his  campaign  in  favour  of  the  Papacy. 
Nevertheless,  negotiations  for  the  alliance  continued  between 
Vienna  and  Rome.  Kalnoky  rejected  the  Italian  wish  that 
Austria- Hungary  and  Germany  should  pledge  themselves  to 
support  Italian  interests  in  the  Mediterranean  but  finally 
consented  to  the  stipulation  of  a  reciprocal  territorial 
guarantee  and  to  a  declaration  that  the  allies  would  act  in 
mutually  friendly  intelligence.  A  military  convention  pro- 
vided that,  in  case  of  war,  Austria-Hungary  should  guard  the 
Adriatic  on  land  and  sea,  while  Italy  should  operate  against 
the  south-eastern  frontier  of  France  and  place  a  second  army 
at  the  direct  disposal  of  her  allies.  Save  among  German 
and  Austrian  Clericals  the  campaign  in  favour  of  the  Pope's 
Temporal  Power  died  down,  having  served  its  purpose  as  a 
whip  to  lash  Italy  into  embracing  the  Central  Powers. 

Few  episodes  of  modern  European  history  illustrate 
more  aptly  than  the  entrance  of  Italy  into  the  Austro-German 
Alliance  the  danger  of  entrusting  the  management  of  foreign 
affairs  to  the  hands  of  untrained  parliamentarians.  Save 
in  the  case  of  men  like  Andrassy  and  Crispi,  who  acquired 
in  exile  a  sense  of  international  perspective,  men  devoid  of 
traditions  and  influenced  by  ideas  applicable,  at  best,  to 


FOREIGN  POLICY  273 

home  politics,  are  liable  to  be  outdistanced  at  every  turn  of 
the  race.  In  the  case  of  Italian  parliamentarians  the  danger 
is  peculiarly  acute.  Their  quickwittedness  and  versatility 
lead  them  to  underestimate  the  difficulties  of  diplomatic 
work.  Count  Alessandro  Guiccioli,  the  brilliant  biographer 
of  Quintino  Sella,  truly  observes  that  Italian  public  men 
find  it  especially  hard  to  resist  the  temptation  of  appearing 
wily.  This  observation  applies  with  force  to  men  like  the 
Italian  Premier,  Depretis,  who,  craftiest  among  the  crafty  in 
home  affairs,  believe  foreign  questions  to  be  susceptible  of 
treatment  by  similar  methods  conceived  on  a  similar  scale. 
Depretis  thought  that  Italian  adhesion  to  the  Austro-German 
Alliance  would,  thanks  to  the  secrecy  of  the  pact,  gain  for 
Italy  the  advantage  of  an  Austro-German  guarantee  of 
Italian  territorial  integrity  without  involving  the  disadvantage 
of  French  hostility.  Thus,  he  imagined,  foreign  affairs  would 
take  care  of  themselves,  while  he  reserved  his  attention  for 
the  short-range  intrigue  of  parliamentary  politics.  But  the 
secret  soon  leaked  out,  and  Bismarck  who  had  no  reason 
to  promote,  by  discretion,  the  intimacy  of  Franco-Italian 
relations,  took  no  pains  to  hide  it.  Italy  was  therefore 
visited  with  French  resentment,  while  Bismarck,  having 
obtained  from  the  Austrian  and  Russian  Emperors  at 
Skiernewice  a  promise  of  their  benevolent  neutrality  in  case 
Germany  should  be  "  compelled  "  to  make  war  upon  France, 
and  having  signed,  without  the  knowledge  of  Austria- 
Hungary,  his  Re- Insurance  Treaty  with  Russia,  proceeded 
to  treat  Italy  with  contempt.  Matters  mended  only  when 
Count  di  Robilant,  who  had  held  important  diplomatic  posts 
abroad  and  had  looked  askance  at  the  formation  of  the 
Triple  Alliance,  was  called  from  the  Vienna  Embassy  in  the 
autumn  of  1885  to  succeed  Mancini  at  the  Italian  Foreign 
Office.  Robilant  stood  his  ground  with  Bismarck,  dealt 
firmly  with  Kalnoky  during  the  Bulgarian  crisis  of  1885-86, 
awakened  in  Italy  some  sense  of  the  importance  of  Balkan 
questions,  and  arranged,  with  the  help  of  Germany,  an 
Anglo-Italian  Naval  Convention  that  safeguarded  Italian 

T 


274  THE   HAPSBURG   MONARCHY 

interests  in  the  Mediterranean.  Crispi,  who  succeeded 
Robilant  in  1887,  forced  the  note  of  intimacy  with  Germany 
and  improved  Austro-Italian  relations  by  stern  repression  of 
Irredentist  tendencies.  For  this  accentuation  of  devotion  to 
the  Triple  Alliance,  Italy  paid  dearly  by  the  rupture  of  her 
commercial  relations  with  France,  and,  during  the  second 
Crispi  Administration  (1893—96),  by  having  to  contend  un- 
aided against  the  support  lent  to  the  Emperor  Menelek  by 
France  and  Russia  during  the  Abyssinian  campaigns.  The 
disaster  of  Adowa  (March  1896)  that  overthrew  the  second 
Crispi  Cabinet  was,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  an  outcome 
of  the  Franco-Russian  policy  of  revenge  upon  Italy  for 
having  helped  to  form  and  for  remaining  a  member  of  the 
Triple  Alliance.  Better  days  dawned  for  Italy  when  the 
veteran  statesman,  Visconti  Venosta,  resumed,  in  the  summer 
of  1896,  the  control  of  Italian  Foreign  Affairs  which  he  had 
previously  held  in  1864  and  throughout  the  period  1869— 
1876.  During  a  visit  paid  by  the  Austro- Hungarian  Foreign 
Minister,  Count  Goiuchowski,  to  King  Humbert  at  Monza  in 
November  1897,  a  verbal  arrangement  was  concluded  that, 
in  the  event  of  the  collapse  of  European  Turkey,  Austria- 
Hungary  and  Italy  would  abstain  from  territorial  acquisitions 
in  Albania  and  would  co-operate  in  promoting  Albanian 
autonomy.  This  arrangement  was  transformed  into  a  written 
understanding  during  Visconti  Venosta's  last  term  of  office 
in  1899—1900.  In  conjunction  with  a  stipulation  which 
is  stated  to  exist  in  the  Italo-Austrian  portion  of  the 
Triple  Alliance,  to  the  effect  that  Italy  is  entitled  to  com- 
pensation for  any  extension  of  Austro-Hungarian  territory 
in  the  Balkans  beyond  the  limits  of  Bosnia-Herzegovina, 
the  Visconti  Venosta-Goiuchowski  Agreement  in  regard  to 
Albania  has  since  formed  and  still  forms  the  basis  of  Austro- 
Italian  policy  in  the  Eastern  Adriatic.  The  agreement  was 
confirmed  during  visits  paid  by  Signer  Tittoni  to  Count 
Goiuchowski  at  Abbazia  in  1905,  and  by  Gofuchowski 
to  Tittoni  at  Venice  in  the  spring  of  1906.  These  visits 
corresponded  to  a  tardy  perception  that,  by  their  rivalry 


FOREIGN   POLICY  275 

and  mutual  suspicion,  Italy  and  Austria- Hungary  were 
damaging  their  Adriatic  interests  to  the  advantage  of 
Germany,  whose  Drang  nach  Triest  has  always  been,  and 
remains  a  much  more  positive  and  practical  factor  of 
European  politics  than  the  Austro- Hungarian  Drang  nach 
Osten,  or  the  dream  of  a  "  March  to  Salonica." l  The 
Austro -Hungarian  statesman,  like  his  Italian  colleague, 
seemed  at  last  to  understand  that  the  German  method  of 
retaining  leadership  in  the  Triple  Alliance  has  usually  been 
to  prevent  direct  intercourse  between  Vienna  and  Rome, 
and,  by  fomenting  suspicion  of  Italy  in  Austria-Hungary 
and  suspicion  of  Austria-Hungary  in  Italy,  to  oblige  the 
two  allies  to  have  constant  recourse  to  the  "  good  offices  "  of 
Germany.  For  long  periods  in  the  history  of  the  Triple 
Alliance,  the  Italian  u  wire  "  to  Vienna  has,  like  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  "  wire  "  to  Rome,  run  through  Berlin,  and  Berlin 
has  rarely  failed  to  levy  a  charge  for  the  transmission  of 
messages.  Whenever  a  direct  "  wire  "  has  been  established 
between  Rome  and  Vienna,  the  displeasure  of  Berlin  has 
been  curiously  manifest  and  "  untoward  incidents "  have 
usually  "  occurred  "  to  mar  the  intimacy  of  the  Adriatic  allies. 
Therefore,  when  Gohichowski's  successor,  Aehrenthal, 
visited  Tittoni  at  Desio  in  July  1907  and  received  his  return 
visit  on  the  Semmering  in  the  following  September,  it  was 
evident  that  Aehrenthal's  original  conception  of  Italy  as  a 
negligible  quantity  had  given  way  to  a  more  statesmanlike 
view.  The  two  men  rapidly  became  intimate.  There  is 
proof  that  after  the  Aehrenthal-Isvolsky  meeting  at  Buchlau 
on  September  15—16,  1908,  Tittoni  was  informed  of  their 

1  As  long  ago  as  1 860  the  Prussian  Foreign  Minister,  Schleinitz,  addressed  to 
Cavour  through  Count  Brassier  de  St.  Simon,  the  Prussian  Minister  at  Turin,  a 
note  of  protest  against  a  decree  published  by  one  of  Cavour's  lieutenants  in  the 
Corriere  delle  Marche  ordaining  that  vessels  hailing  from  "the  Italian  city  of 
Trieste  "  were  to  receive  in  Italian  Adriatic  ports  the  same  treatment  as  Italian 
vessels.  It  is  significant  that  the  protest  should  have  come,  not  from  the 
Austrian,  but  from  the  Prussian  Foreign  Minister,  who  bade  Cavour  remember 
that  Trieste  was  a  "  German  city  "  (ville  allemande),  and  urged  that  the  decree 
of  his  lieutenant  must  therefore  be  disavowed.  The  text  of  the  Prussian  note 
was  first  divulged  in  Lamarmora's  famous  pamphlet,  Un  /<?'  piii  di  luce  sui  fatti 
del  1866,  and  afterwards  reproduced  in  Chiala's  Lettere  di  Camilla  Cavour. 


276  THE   HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

agreement  in  regard  to  the  Annexation,  and  that  he  dis- 
cussed it  with  M.  Isvolsky  at  Desio  on  September  29—30. 
What  "  compensation "  Italy  received  for  assenting  in 
advance  to  the  annexation  can  only  be  surmised,  but  it  is 
probable  that  it  consisted  in  Austro- Hungarian  consent  to 
the  eventual  acquisition  of  Tripoli  by  Italy,  and  also  in  an 
agreement  that,  at  the  moment  of  Annexation,  Austria- 
Hungary  should  evacuate  the  Sanjak  of  Novi  Bazar.  Soon 
after  the  Annexation,  Tittoni  delivered  at  Carate  a  public 
speech  of  which  the  complacent  tone — strongly  at  variance 
with  the  indignation  of  Italian  public  opinion — revealed  the 
existence  of  some  previous  understanding  between  him  and 
Aehrenthal.  But  at  that  moment  Aehrenthal's  reputation 
for  reliability  stood  low,  and  during  the  debate  on  the 
Annexation  in  the  Italian  Chamber  (December  1-4,  1908) 
the  majority  of  speakers  were  agreed  in  regarding  as  worth- 
less promises  the  "  compensation "  Tittoni  had  obtained. 
Anti-Austrian  feeling  ran  riot,  Irredentist  sentiment  again 
blazed  forth  and  reports  of  a  Garibaldian  expedition  to 
support  Servia  against  Austria-Hungary  in  case  of  war  were 
circulated  by  sundry  Italian,  German,  and  Austrian  journals. 
It  is  a  curious  fact  that  Italians  from  Dalmatia,  who  were 
eager  to  join  the  "  expedition,"  and  who  applied  in  person 
to  General  Ricciotti  Garibaldi  for  enrolment,  discovered  that 
not  only  had  he  made  no  preparations  for  an  expedition,  but 
that  the  "  Garibaldians  "  actually  enrolled  had  been  enlisted 
by  agents  notoriously  connected  with  the  German  Consulate 
in  a  city  of  Northern  Italy.  Aehrenthal  proved,  however,  as 
good  as  his  word,  and  showed  by  his  attitude  of  friendly 
neutrality  towards  Italy  during  the  occupation  of  Tripoli  in 
1 91 1,  that  the  retention  of  Italian  friendship  appeared  to 
him  a  necessity  of  the  first  order.  Although  he  protested, 
as  he  was  entitled  under  the  Visconti  Venosta-Gohichowski 
Agreement  to  protest,  against  Italian  naval  operations  off  the 
Albanian  coast  in  the  autumn  of  1911,  he  steadily  resisted 
the  influence  of  the  Austrian  Clerico-Military  party,  combined 
with  that  of  the  Jewish-Liberal  press  and  of  plutocratic 


FOREIGN   POLICY  277 

interests,  which  worked  in  favour  of  an  armed  attack  upon 
Italy.  With  his  whole  remaining  strength  he  opposed  the 
intrigues  of  General  Baron  Conrad  von  Hotzendorf,  the  Chief 
of  General  Staff,  and  of  personages  still  more  influential, 
and  by  compelling  the  Emperor  to  choose  between  him  and 
Conrad  von  Hotzendorf,  brought  about  the  latter's  resigna- 
tion. Though  Aehrenthal  did  not  live  to  see  the  formation 
of  the  Balkan  League  and  the  expulsion  of  the  Turks  from 
the  greater  part  of  the  Balkan  Peninsula,  he  left  to  his 
successor,  Count  Berchtold,  a  valuable  legacy  in  the  form  of 
an  improved  relationship  with  Italy  that  rendered  possible 
the  early  renewal  of  the  Triple  Alliance  in  1912,  and  the 
constant  co-operation  between  Vienna  and  Rome  during 
the  recent  Balkan  crisis. 

No  episode  of  the  Balkan  crisis  was  more  significant 
than  the  quasi-agreement  improvised  by  Austria-Hungary 
and  Italy  for  parallel  if  not  joint  action  in  Albania  after 
the  fall  of  Skutari.  In  its  anxiety  not  to  allow  Montenegro 
to  retain  possession  of  Skutari — the  centre  of  Austrian 
influence  in  Northern  Albania — Austro- Hungarian  diplo- 
macy was  on  the  point  of  agreeing  to  an  Italian  occupation 
of  the  important  Albanian  harbour  of  Vallona,  the  key  of 
the  Adriatic ;  and  the  most  militant  Austrian  politicians 
were  prepared,  for  one  mad  week,  to  sanction  the  establish- 
ment of  Italy  in  a  position  from  which  it  had  always  been 
the  object  of  Austro-Hungarian  strategists  to  exclude  her. 
The  Italian  and  Austro-Hungarian  spheres  of  influence  in 
Southern  and  Northern  Albania  respectively  were  tenta- 
tively marked  out,  the  valley  of  the  Shkumbi  river  being  taken 
as  the  dividing  line  between  them.  But  the  moderating 
influence  of  the  Triple  Entente  and  the  skill  with  which 
England  obtained  the  command  both  of  the  international 
fleet  blockading  the  Montenegrin  coast  and  of  the  inter- 
national forces  that  occupied  Skutari  after  the  Montenegrin 
evacuation,  saved  Austria- Hungary  and  Italy  alike  from  the 
complications  which  their  precipitate  action  would  have 
entailed.  It  is  a  widespread  and,  possibly,  a  well-founded 


278  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

belief  that  the  partition  of  Albania  between  Austria-Hungary 
and  Italy  would  rapidly  lead  to  war  between  the  parti- 
tioners  ;  and  it  is  probable  that  those  Austrian  strategists 
who  were  prepared  to  tolerate  the  Italian  acquisition  of 
Vallona  were  influenced  by  a  mental  reservation  that  the 
Monarchy  would  speedily  find  means  to  neutralize  the  Italian 
advantage,  if  not  to  compel  Italy  to  relinquish  her  grip 
upon  the  Eastern  Adriatic  shore.  On  the  other  hand,  Italy, 
who  early  in  the  Balkan  crisis  had  resented  and  practically 
vetoed  the  Austro- Hungarian  suggestion  that  Montenegro 
should  cede  to  Austria  the  mountain  of  Lovtchen  which 
commands  the  Bocche  di  Cattaro  and  diminishes  the  strategic 
value  of  that  magnificent  harbour,  was  eager  to  occupy 
Vallona,  less  because  it  might  be  converted  into  one  of 
the  finest  naval  bases  in  the  Adriatic  than  because  its 
possession  would  enable  Italy  at  any  moment  to  close  the 
strait  of  Otranto  and  to  compel  Austria-Hungary  to  give 
battle  there  instead  of  awaiting  an  Italian  attack  near 
the  Austrian  naval  base  of  Pola,  or  in  proximity  to  the 
strategic  curtain  formed  by  the  Dalmatian  islands.  It  is 
characteristic  of  the  Austro-Italian  Alliance  that  the  parties 
to  it  should  be  constantly  contemplating  and  preparing  for 
war  against  each  other.  Prince  Billow  once  declared  that  the 
only  alternatives  for  Austria- Hungary  and  Italy  are  alliance 
or  war ;  and  he  may  have  added,  sotto  voce,  that  in  so  far  as 
his  efforts  might  avail,  the  Alliance  should  never  be  so  cordial 
as  to  preclude  the  possibility  of  a  rupture,  nor  Austro- 
Italian  relations  so  bad  as  to  preclude  the  maintenance  of  the 
Alliance.  Austria-Hungary,  for  her  part,  has  rarely  had  a 
clear  notion  of  her  interests  in  regard  to  Italy,  nor  followed 
a  consistent  policy  towards  her  Southern  ally.  At  Court, 
though  not  in  the  mind  of  the  Emperor  ;  in  the  Foreign 
Office,  though  not  always  in  the  mind  of  the  Foreign 
Minister ;  in  aristocratic  society ;  in  the  Army  and  Navy 
and  especially  in  the  Church,  there  have  always  been,  since 
the  unity  of  Italy  was  accomplished,  influences  and  intrigues 
working  for  "  the  chastisement  of  Italy,"  and  propagating 


FOREIGN   POLICY  279 

the  belief  that  only  by  fresh  victories  on  the  Lombard  or 
Venetian  plains  or  by  another  battle  of  Lissa,  can  the 
Monarchy  restore  its  prestige  in  Europe  and  gain  a  free 
hand  in  the  Western  Balkans.  While  the  manifestations  of 
solidarity  between  the  Germans  of  Austria  and  the  Germans 
of  the  German  Empire  have  been  winked  at,  the  pro-Italian 
sentiments  of  the  Austrian  Italians  have  been  treated  as 
treasonable  and  the  responses  from  Italy  denounced  as 
"  Irredentism."  The  Austrian  corps  of  officers  was,  until 
quite  recently,  trained  to  regard  and  to  teach  the  rank  and 
file  to  regard  Italy  as  the  enemy ;  and,  but  a  few  years  back, 
those  who,  in  conversation  with  Austro-Hungarian  military 
men,  ventured  to  question  the  necessity  of  an  Austro- 
Italian  war  or  argued  that  such  a  war  could  only  redound 
to  the  advantage  of  Germany,  were  treated  as  amiable  or 
intriguing  visionaries.  Even  at  moments  when  Foreign 
Ministers  like  Gotuchowski,  Aehrenthal,  or  Berchtold  were 
striving  for  an  agreement  with  the  Italian  Government  on 
points  of  foreign  policy,  the  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Trieste  in 
agreement  with  the  Austrian  Minister  of  the  Interior  pitilessly 
expelled  Italian  subjects — no  matter  how  long  their  residence 
nor  how  inoffensive  their  character — from  Trieste,  Istria,  and 
Dalmatia,  sometimes  at  the  rate  of  ninety  a  month,  and 
refused  nationalization  papers  to  Italian  applicants  even  if 
they  were  natives  of  Trieste.1  Nevertheless,  since  the  military 
and  economic  potentiality  of  the  Italian  Kingdom  have  been 
demonstrated  by  the  gallantry  of  the  Italian  troops  in  Tripoli 
and  the  comparative  ease  with  which  the  Italian  Exchequer 
bore  the  burden  of  the  war  with  Turkey  (despite  the  hostility 
of  cosmopolitan  financiers),  there  has  been  a  change  in  the 
attitude  of  Austria-Hungary  towards  Italy,  and  the  former 
tone  of  comminatory  condescension  has  given  place  to  a  note 

1  The  recent  expulsion  of  Italian  officials  from  the  employ  of  the  Municipality 
of  Trieste  is  a  logical  continuation  of  this  policy,  but  one  which  might  perhaps 
have  been  avoided  had  not  Italy  placed  herself  in  a  position  of  comparative 
isolation  by  allowing  her  relations  with  France  to  become  strained.  The 
temptation  to  treat  an  isolated  Italy  with  contempt  is  too  strong  for  Austrian 
bureaucrats  to  resist. 


280  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

of  semi-jealous  admiration.  In  December  1902  Gotuchowski 
rejected  with  polite  irony  a  suggestion  from  the  Italian 
Foreign  Minister,  Prinetti,  that  Italy  had  a  right  to  be  con- 
sulted by  Austria-Hungary  and  Russia  in  regard  to  the 
question  of  Macedonian  Reform;  early  in  1907  Baron  von 
Aehrenthal  believed  himself  able  to  leave  Italy  out  of  account 
when  preparing  to  deal  with  Near  Eastern  issues  ;  but,  in  the 
spring  of  1913,  Count  Berchtold  was  fain  to  seek  Italian 
assent  to  the  projected  operations  against  Montenegro,  and 
was  disposed  to  purchase  it  by  admitting  the  Italian  claim  to 
the  lion's  share  of  Albania  !  On  the  part  of  Italy  the  fears  of 
an  Austrian  attack,  that  led  to  the  fortification  of  the  Italian 
side  of  the  Italo- Austrian  frontier  between  the  years  1902 
and  1910,  were  gradually  replaced  by  the  singular  notions 
that  the  Southern  Slav  question  represents  almost  as  great 
a  danger  for  Italy  as  for  Austria-Hungary,  and  that  Italy  is 
interested  in  helping  to  keep  Servia  away  from  the  Adriatic. 
The  crudity  of  these  notions  did  not  prevent  them  from 
bringing  the  official  attitude  of  Italy  into  harmony  with 
that  of  the  Monarchy  during  the  delimitation  of  Albania. 
Most  nations  and  many  governments  are  ignorant  of  foreign 
affairs,  and  the  Austro-Hungarian  Monarchy  deserves  perhaps 
to  head  the  list  of  States  whose  policy  has  been  guided  by 
fundamental  ignorance  of  some  of  the  foreign  questions  most 
nearly  affecting  them.  But  in  Italy  also  ignorance  of  the 
forces  and  conditions  that  appear  destined  to  mould  the 
future  of  the  Eastern  Adriatic  is  phenomenal.  Contemporary 
Italian  views  of  Adriatic  questions,  save  of  the  Albanian 
question  in  its  naval  aspects,  are  still  influenced  mainly  by 
sympathy  with  the  estimable  Italians  of  Dalmatia  and  Istria, 
who  judge  the  whole  problem  of  the  Slav  Adriatic  littoral 
from  the  standpoint  of  their  own  struggle  against  the  over- 
whelming numerical  strength  of  the  Southern  Slavs  in  Istria 
and  Dalmatia.  The  Italians  of  Dalmatia  and  Istria  have 
one  true  interest — to  save  what  can  yet  be  saved  of  their 
culture  and  of  the  traditions  of  the  Venetian  Republic  by 
frank  agreement  with  their  Slav  fellow-subjects.  Otherwise, 


FOREIGN  POLICY  281 

their  "  national  struggle  "  will  but  facilitate  the  endeavours 
of  the  equally  short-sighted  Austrian  administration  to 
Germanize  the  Adriatic.  The  Kingdom  of  Italy  and  the 
Austro-Hungarian  Monarchy  are  indeed  jointly  interested 
in  the  Southern  Slav  question.  Their  safest  policy  would 
be  to  promote  the  union  of  the  Southern  Slavs  in  friendly 
intelligence  with  the  House  of  Hapsburg,  if  not  under  its 
auspices.  Only  thus  can  the  Hapsburg  Monarchy  and  Italy 
alike  escape  the  danger  that  threatens  them  both  from  the 
German  Drang  nach  Triest  and  build  athwart  the  German 
line  of  economic  and  political  advance  a  solid  Southern 
Slav  barrier.  Otherwise  Italy  may  awaken  too  late  to  the 
fact  that  the  Adriatic — of  which  the  Eastern  littoral  from 
the  Quarnero  to  Antivari  is  Serbo-Croatian — is  in  process 
of  becoming  not  an  Italian  nor  a  Slav,  but  a  German  Sea. 
German  shipping  companies,  scarcely  disguised  under  Italian 
names,  already  challenge  the  supremacy  of  the  Austrian 
Lloyd  at  Trieste ;  German  banks,  bearing  Viennese  and 
Italian  names,  are  gradually  absorbing  the  commerce  and 
controlling  the  interests  of  the  port ;  local  German  parties 
"  support "  the  Triestine  Italians  in  the  "  national  struggle  " 
against  the  invading  Slav,  while  the  Austrian  authorities,  for 
fear  of  "  Irredentism,"  bar  the  importation  of  Italian  capital 
from  the  neighbouring  kingdom.  North  German  enterprise 
is  eating  the  heart  out  of  Italian  and  Austrian  Trieste  and 
is  preparing  to  substantiate  the  claim  of  Schleinitz  that 
Trieste  is  a  ville  Allemande. 

The  notions  that  the  Southern  Slav  problem  threatens 
the  existence  of  Austria-Hungary,  and  that  foreign  states 
like  Italy  are  vitally  interested  in  opposing  the  Southern 
Slavs  in  order  to  assist  in  maintaining  the  Hapsburg  Mon- 
archy, deserve,  however,  to  be  considered  from  another  than 
a  merely  Adriatic  standpoint.  The  question  whether  it  be 
not  too  late  for  Austria-Hungary  to  solve  the  Southern  Slav 
problem  in  her  own  favour  is  hard  to  answer  negatively  in 
view  of  the  victories  of  Servia  and  of  the  bad  faith  and 


282  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

wrongheadedness  of  Hapsburg  statesmen  during  recent  years. 
But  in  judging  the  affairs  of  the  Hapsburg  Monarchy,  it  is 
easy  to  underestimate  its  hidden  powers  of  resistance,  its 
secret  vitality  and  the  half-unconscious  dynastic  cohesion  of 
its  peoples.  For  these  forces  and  qualities  full  allowance 
must  always  be  made,  even  though  the  signs  of  their  exist- 
ence be  overshadowed  by  symptoms  of  decrepitude  and  dis- 
integration. After  the  Balkan  victories  over  Turkey  in  the 
autumn  of  1912,  the  impression  was  widespread  in  many 
parts  of  Austria  and  in  some  parts  of  Hungary  that  the 
Monarchy  had  received  its  death-blow.  The  prediction  of  a 
sanguine  Southern  Slav  who  wrote  on  the  eve  of  the  war, 
"  If  this  war  succeeds,  the  Monarchy  will  cease  to  be  a 
Great  Power,"  seemed  to  have  been  realized.  An  odour  as 
of  death  was  in  every  nostril.  The  mingled  incompetence 
and  insincerity  that  characterized  such  management  of 
Austro-Hungarian  affairs  as  was  visible  to  the  public  eye, 
led  an  experienced  and  unprejudiced  diplomatic  observer  to 
exclaim,  "  Jamais  je  n'ai  vu  des  gens  si  acharne"s  a  travailler 
centre  leurs  propres  inte"rets,"  and  the  saw,  Quos  Deus 
vult  perdere,  was  a  commonplace  of  conversation.  But  the 
Monarchy,  though  stricken,  continued  to  live  and  have  its 
being.  To  the  question  whether  it  could  continue  to  exist, 
it  seemed  to  reply,  Solvitur  vivendo  !  Gradually  the  con- 
sciousness dawned,  even  in  minds  not  quick  to  perceive  the 
essential  lines  of  a  situation,  that  if  the  existence  of  the 
Monarchy  is  threatened,  the  menace  comes  less  from  without 
than  from  within,  and  proceeds  mainly  from  the  ill-starred 
legacy  of  Sadowa — the  Dual  System.  The  perception 
dawned  first  among  the  partisans  of  Dualism,  the  "  Liberal " 
Germans  of  Austria,  and  the  Magyars  and  Judaeo- Magyars 
of  Hungary,  who  instinctively  drew  nearer  each  other  and 
sought  to  sink  their  differences  in  order  to  support  the 
System  that  was  fashioned  to  perpetuate  their  hegemony. 
Their  defence  is  likely  to  be  stout,  especially  in  view  of  the 
successful  re-occupation  of  Thrace  by  the  Young  Turks,  and 
they  may  yet  succeed  in  wrecking  the  Monarchy  before  it 


FOREIGN   POLICY  283 

can  reorganize  itself  upon  a  basis  such  as  to  give  it  and  its 
dynasty  a  reasonable  prospect  of  withstanding  at  once  the 
German,  the  Russian,  and  the  Southern  Slav  dangers. 

Of  these  dangers  the  most  apparent  is  the  Southern 
Slav,  the  most  immediately  formidable  the  Russian  (or 
perhaps  the  Russo-Rumanian),  and  the  most  insidious  the 
German. 

The  Southern  Slav  problem  has  two  main  aspects,  of 
which  the  one  is  represented  by  the  undeniable  tendency  of 
all  branches  of  the  Serbo-Croatian  race  towards  political 
union,  and  the  other  by  the  formidable  obstacle  which 
the  Dual  System  places  in  the  way  of  any  rational  Austro- 
Hungarian  Southern  Slav  policy.  Prior  to  the  Balkan  War 
the  watchword  of  the  most  influential  Austro- Hungarian 
Southern  Slavs  was  "  All  together ;  within  the  Monarchy  if 
possible,  but  in  any  case  all  together."  After  the  war  a 
feeling  that  it  is  hopeless  to  aim  at  union  within  the 
Monarchy  spread  and  deepened,  less  perhaps  on  account  of 
the  consideration  that  the  Greater  Servia  created  by  the 
war  seems  unlikely  ever  to  come  under  the  Hapsburg 
Crown  than  because  of  the  disappointment  and  resentment 
engendered  by  the  continued  ill  -  treatment  of  Croatia- 
Slavonia,  Bosnia  -  Herzegovina,  and  Dalmatia  during  and 
after  the  war.  Hungary,  to  whom  Croatia  -  Slavonia  and 
half  the  influence  over  Bosnia- Herzegovina  constitutionally 
belong,  will  never,  it  is  assumed,  voluntarily  consent  to 
treat  the  Southern  Slavs  in  such  manner  as  to  allow  them 
to  become  a  counterpoise  to  the  Magyar  State  in  the 
Monarchy  ;  and  no  developments  such  as  to  prevail  against 
the  will  of  the  Magyar  State  appear  yet  to  be  within  sight. 
Hungary  naturally  clings  to  the  possession  of  Croatia- 
Slavonia,  through  which  lies  her  only  route  to  the  sea,  and 
of  Fiume,  her  only  port,  which  she  received  from  Maria 
Theresa  as  a  corpus  separatum  of  the  Hungarian  Crown  in 
1779  and  has  developed  immensely  since  its  restoration  to 
her  in  1870.  Fiume  is  the  only  window  through  which  the 
Magyars  can  look  out  upon  the  world,  and  it  is  compre- 


284  THE   HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

hensible  that  they  should  strive,  by  fair  means  and  foul,  to 
prevent  the  Southern  Slav  race  from  obstructing  the  view. 
Dalmatia  is  also  claimed  by  the  Magyars  as  historically  and 
constitutionally  theirs.  Every  Hungarian  coin  bears  the  in- 
scription, "Ferencz  J6zsef  I.K.A.Cs-  £s-  M.H.S.D.O.AP.Kir." 
(Francis  Joseph  by  the  Grace  of  God,  Austrian  Emperor, 
and  of  Hungary,  Croatia,  Slavonia,  Dalmatia,  Apostolic 
King).  The  Magyar  solution  of  the  Southern  Slav  question 
would  be  the  re-incorporation  with  Hungary  of  Dalmatia  and 
also  of  Bosnia -Herzegovina — which  the  Magyars  identify 
with  the  Kingdom  of  Rama,  whose  banner  figures  at  the 
coronation  of  Hungarian  Kings.  But  this  solution  pre- 
supposes the  abandonment  by  Austria  of  all  control  over 
the  Adriatic  littoral  beyond  Trieste  and  the  coast  of  Istria. 
During  the  first  years  of  the  Dual  System,  when  the  affairs 
of  Hungary  were  guided  by  men  of  superior  political  talent, 
there  appeared  some  reason  to  believe  that  the  Magyars, 
acting  as  primi  inter  pares,  would  group  round  them  the 
Southern  Slav  peoples  and  acquire,  with  their  support,  the 
leadership  in  the  Monarchy.  This  solution  now  seems  to 
be  past  hoping  for.  From  the  standpoint  of  the  internal 
cohesion  of  the  Monarchy,  the  Magyar  State  has  acted  as  a 
repellent  force,  powerless  for  good,  powerful  for  evil ;  and, 
pending  proof  to  the  contrary,  students  of  Hapsburg  affairs 
are  constrained  to  regard  the  Magyars  rather  as  a  liability 
than  as  an  asset  of  the  Crown.  The  instinct  of  self- 
preservation  might  perhaps  work  a  miracle  at  the  twelfth 
hour  had  not  the  present  generation  of  Magyars  been  so 
steeped  in  chauvinism  as  to  have  lost  all  sense  of  their  real 
position  in  Europe;  and,  unless  some  heaven-sent  leader 
arises  in  the  midst,  or  unless  "  Vienna  "  blunders  so  egregi- 
ously  as  to  warn  them  in  time,  the  future  may  reserve  for 
them  trials  as  severe  as  any  they  have  experienced  during 
their  chequered  history.  As  for  Austria,  she  cannot  even 
address  herself  to  the  task  of  dealing  reasonably  with  the 
Serbo-Croatian  problem  so  long  as  the  Dual  System  in  its 
present  form  and  the  present  Magyar  State  block  the  way. 


FOREIGN   POLICY  285 

The  Southern  Slav  danger  may,  indeed,  be  fended  off  for  a 
time  by  preventing  the  economic  development  of  the  Serbo- 
Croatian  race  as  Hungary  has  hitherto  prevented  the 
development  of  Croatia- Slavonia ;  Austria  (mainly  at  the 
instance  of  Hungary)  the  development  of  Dalmatia  ;  and 
Austria -.Hungary  combined  that  of  Bosnia -Herzegovina. 
But  the  Serbo-Croatians  are  gradually  learning  the  lesson 
which  some  of  the  Northern  Slavs  of  the  Monarchy,  notably 
the  Czechs  and  to  some  extent  the  Hungarian  Slovaks, 
have  learned  from  the  Jews — the  necessity  of  husbanding 
their  own  resources,  creating  their  own  banks,  and  develop- 
ing their  economic  potentiality  in  such  manner  as  to  resist, 
first  the  local  Jewish  usurers  and  secondly  international 
Jewish  finance,  which  the  Southern  Slavs  regard  not  without 
reason  as  the  pioneer  of  Germanism.  Patient  effort,  aided 
by  the  development  of  the  Southern  Slavs  beyond  the 
border,  should  enable  the  Serbo-Croatians  of  the  Monarchy 
eventually  to  overcome  or  to  undermine  the  obstructive 
policy  of  Vienna  and  Budapest,  unless,  indeed,  Vienna  and 
Budapest  awaken  to  the  folly  of  seeking  to  retain  in 
economic  subjection  populations  and  territories  whose 
development  cannot  in  the  long  run  be  prevented  without 
exposing  the  whole  Monarchy  to  grievous  peril.  The 
fundamental  internal  problem  that  confronts  the  Hapsburg 
Monarchy  is  how  to  modify  or  extend  the  Dual  System 
without  civil  war  and  its  attendant  risks.  Opinions  differ 
widely  as  to  the  resistance  which  the  Magyars  could  offer 
to  an  attempt  to  unify  the  Monarchy  by  force  ;  but  cata- 
strophic contingencies  of  this  kind  are  best  ignored  until 
all  possibilities  and  hypotheses  of  pacific  arrangement  have 
been  exhausted.  One  such  hypothesis  is  that,  in  view  of 
the  impossibility  of  allotting  Bosnia-Herzegovina  either  to 
Austria  or  to  Hungary,  and  in  view  of  the  necessity  of  giving 
to  the  disjointed  and  artificially  divided  Serbo  -  Croatian 
provinces  of  the  Monarchy  some  form  of  organization 
corresponding  to  their  desires  and  needs,  the  joint  rule  now 
prevailing  in  the  annexed  provinces  should  be  modified  and 


286  THE   HAPSBURG   MONARCHY 

extended  so  as  to  include  Croatia,  Slavonia,  and  Dalmatia. 
To  this  hypothesis  there  are  doubtless  weighty  objections. 
Magyar  Constitutional  lawyers  would  abhor  any  admission 
of  Austrian  influence  to  Lands  of  the  Crown  of  St.  Stephen 
like  Croatia  -  Slavonia ;  and  Austrian  feeling  would  run 
counter  to  any  extension  of  Hungarian  influence  to  the 
Dalmatian  littoral.  The  Serbo-Croatians  themselves  might 
resent  the  reduction  of  Dalmatia  and  Croatia-Slavonia  to 
the  position  of  a  joint  Reichsland  even  were  such  reduction 
to  be  accompanied  by  complete  local  autonomy  and 
economic  advantages.  But  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
Monarchy  and  of  the  Dynasty,  this  hypothesis  might  offer 
the  advantage  of  creating  a  fresh  link  between  Hungary 
and  Austria  and  of  avoiding  the  dislocation  inseparable 
from  any  attempt  to  replace  the  Dual  System  by  a  Triple 
or  a  Federalist  organization  of  the  Monarchy.  Were  an 
Austro- Hungarian  Serbo- Croatia  to  be  constituted  with  a 
central  Diet  and  a  veritably  autonomous  Government,  and 
were  it  entitled  to  send  representatives  direct  to  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  Delegations  which  would  remain  competent  to 
deal  with  diplomatic  and  military  matters,  a  tentative  solu- 
tion of  the  Austro -Hungarian  side  of  the  Southern  Slav 
question  might  perhaps  have  been  found.  Most  Austrians 
and  some  Hungarians  would  prefer  to  any  such  expedient  a 
policy  that  would  make  tabula  rasa  of  existing  arrange- 
ments and  satisfy  either  the  "  Young  Austrian "  ideal  of 
federalized  unity  for  the  whole  Monarchy,  or  the  Magyar 
ideal  of  Hungarian  independence  with  complete  Magyar 
control  over  Croatia-Slavonia,  Dalmatia,  and  Bosnia-Herze- 
govina. But  the  history  of  the  Constitutional  experiments 
during  the  early  'sixties  of  last  century  scarcely  encourages 
belief  in  the  practical  value  of  a  new  arrangement  drafted 
on  a  "  clean  slate  "  by  Constitutional  theorists.  The  adapta- 
tion of  what  exists  might  produce  more  tolerable  results  and 
be  better  adapted  to  the  Austro  -  Hungarian  genius  for 
"  muddling  along."  Should,  however,  Vienna  and  Budapest 
remain  obdurate  and  continue  to  sacrifice  the  economic 


FOREIGN  POLICY  287 

development  of  the  Serbo-Croatians  to  the  maintenance  of 
the  Dual  System  in  its  present  form,  the  sense  of  economic 
suffocation  will  inevitably  be  added  to  the  sense  of  political 
oppression  that  acts  to-day  as  the  strongest  stimulant  to 
the  feeling  of  Southern  Slav  solidarity.  If  and  when  the 
Balkan  countries,  and  especially  Servia,  develop  their 
economic  resources  and  advance  in  prosperity,  the  position 
of  the  Serbo  -  Croatian  provinces  of  the  Monarchy  will 
become  intolerably  anomalous  unless  Austro  -  Hungarian 
statesmen  face  in  time  the  problem  confronting  them.  To- 
day, in  all  its  aspects,  the  Southern  Slav  question  involves 
danger  for  the  Monarchy.  If  the  danger  be  ignored  or 
trifled  with  there  may  presently  be  no  means  of  averting  it 
save  by  a  dynastic  coup  cTEtat  or  by  an  upheaval  among 
the  elements  that  still  believe  in  the  future  of  the  Hapsburg 
polity. 

Did  the  Southern  Slav  question  stand  alone,  its  solution 
might  be  less  difficult  and  call  less  urgently  for  treatment. 
But  in  point  of  fact,  it  is  only  one  link  in  the  chain  of  notes 
of  interrogation  that  encircles  the  Hapsburg  dominions. 
In  the  south-east  of  Hungary  the  old  question  of  Transyl- 
vanian  autonomy  and  the  newer  question  of  Rumanian 
Irredentism  remain  unsolved  and  may  be  thrust  into  special 
prominence  should,  as  a  result  of  the  Balkan  crisis,  the  rela- 
tions between  the  Monarchy  and  the  Kingdom  of  Rumania 
grow  less  cordial.  Here,  as  in  the  Southern  Slav  question, 
the  short-sighted  chauvinism  of  the  Magyars  has  again  been 
to  blame.  In  the  vain  attempt  to  Magyarize  a  prolific 
and  gifted  race  not  inferior  to  themselves  in  intellectual 
capacity,  though  long  downtrodden,  the  Magyars  have 
undermined  the  loyalty  of  the  Rumanes  not  only  to  the 
Magyar  State  but  to  the  Hapsburg  Dynasty,  and  have  laid 
the  axe  at  the  root  of  the  Austro- Hungarian  system  of 
resistance  to  Russia  in  South-Eastern  Europe.  Since  1878, 
when  Russia  estranged  Rumania  by  annexing  the  part  of 
Bessarabia  assigned  to  Moldavia  by  the  Treaty  of  Paris, 
Rumania  has  been  compelled  to  rely  on  Austro- Hungarian 


288  THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

support.  Rarely  have  a  state  and  a  statesman  been  guilty 
of  a  more  egregious  blunder  than  were  Russia  and  Gortchakoff 
in  despoiling  Rumania  of  territory  after  Prince  Carol  with 
his  gallant  troops  had  saved  the  honour  of  Russian  arms  at 
Plevna  and  had  virtually  turned  in  favour  of  Russia  the 
adverse  tide  of  the  Russo-Turkish  War.  The  result  was  to 
paralyse  for  decades  the  effective  influence  of  Russia  in  the 
Balkans.  Rumania  for  her  part  was  doubly  damaged — by 
the  loss  of  her  portion  of  Bessarabia  and  by  the  political 
impossibility  —  in  her  position  of  dependence  upon  the 
Monarchy — of  applying  diplomatic  or  military  pressure  to 
Austria- Hungary  in  order  to  secure  better  treatment  for  the 
Rumanes  of  Transylvania  and  freedom  from  the  chicanery 
constantly  employed  by  the  Magyar  frontier  and  railway 
authorities  to  impede  the  importation  of  Rumanian  cattle 
and  agricultural  produce  into  the  Monarchy.  The  exact 
nature  of  the  political  and  military  agreements  concluded 
between  Rumania  and  the  Monarchy  after  the  formation  of 
the  Triple  Alliance  has  never  been  divulged,  but  the  arrange- 
ments are  supposed  to  include  a  reciprocal  territorial  guarantee 
and  a  military  convention  arranging  for  the  simultaneous 
mobilization  of  the  Austro-Hungarian  and  the  Rumanian 
armies  in  case  of  Russian  attack.  How  long  such  agree- 
ments would  survive  skilful  diplomatic  assault  by  Russia  is 
an  open  question.  A  Russian  Bismarck,  or  rather  a  Russian 
Cavour,  would  scarcely  hesitate  to  efface  the  ungrateful 
blunder  of  1878  and  to  promote  a  good  understanding  with 
Rumania  by  considerate  treatment  of  those  Rumanes  who 
might  still  be  left  under  Russian  rule.  Hitherto  the  only 
non-Rumanian  Rumanes  who  have  been  considerately  treated 
by  their  rulers  are  those  of  the  Bukovina,  where  the  Austrian 
authorities  have  shown  an  intelligent  toleration  that  is 
eloquent  of  what  the  Hapsburg  Monarchy  might  become 
were  it  governed  from  end  to  end  in  a  spirit  of  impartial 
good-will.  But  in  the  Bukovina  are  to  be  found,  alongside 
of  Rumanes,  the  beginnings  of  a  problem  which  may  yet 
involve  Austria- Hungary  and  Russia  in  a  struggle  even  if 


FOREIGN  POLICY  289 

it  does  not  precipitate  a  European  conflagration.  The 
Ruthenes,  or  Little  Russians,  who  inhabit  the  western  dis- 
tricts of  the  Bukovina,  practically  the  whole  of  Eastern  Galicia, 
as  far  as  Przemysl,  and  several  Russian  "  Governments " 
like  Podolia,  Volhynia  and  Kieff,  form  a  racially  compact 
mass  of  some  30,000,000  souls,  extending  from  the  Dnieper 
to  the  Carpathians,  and  overflowing  into  North -Eastern 
Hungary.  Russia  regards  the  Little  Russians  as  an  integral 
part  of  the  Great  Russian  family  and  treats  their  language 
as  a  Russian  dialect.  Austria  encourages  the  Ruthenes  to 
regard  themselves  as  a  separate  Slav  race  and  their  language 
as  a  well-characterized  Slav  idiom  as  distinct  from  Russian 
as  from  Polish.  The  linguistic  question  in  its  scientific 
aspects  is  one  for  philologists  ;  but  in  its  political  aspects 
it  may  presently  acquire  grave  importance.  Russia  offers 
no  facilities  for  education  in  the  Little  Russian  language  or 
dialect.  Austria  has  created  a  number  of  Ruthene  pro- 
fessorships at  the  University  at  Lemberg  and  treats  Ruthene 
as  one  of  the  recognized  official  languages  of  the  Empire. 
The  Austrian  side  of  every  Austro-Hungarian  bank-note 
bears  an  inscription  in  Ruthene  as  well  as  in  Polish  and 
the  language  is  taught  in  the  primary  schools  of  Eastern 
Galicia  with  the  sole  restriction  that  the  learning  of  Polish 
is  also  obligatory.  The  only  Russian  means  of  counter- 
acting Austrian  efforts  to  encourage  Austrian  Ruthenes,  or 
Little  Russians,  in  the  belief  that  they  are  a  separate 
people,  is  a  Russophil  and  Orthodox  propaganda  among 
the  Austrian  Ruthenes  aided  by  the  surreptitious  intro- 
duction of  Russian  roubles  into  Eastern  Galicia,  so  that  the 
peasants  may  draw  from  the  Russian  inscription  on  the 
coins  and  from  the  portrait  of  the  Tsar,  the  conclusion  that 
the  Great  White  Tsar  is  their  rightful  ruler.  This  con- 
clusion is  drawn  more  readily  by  those  Austrian  Ruthenes 
who  belong  to  the  Russian  Orthodox  Church  than  by  those 
who  are  members  of  the  Greek  United  Church,  which  is 
Roman  Catholic  in  doctrine  but  Orthodox  in  rite.  Of  late 
years  the  Greek  United  Church,  whose  head  in  Galicia  is 

u 


290  THE   HAPSBURG   MONARCHY 

Mgr.  Count  Szeptycki,  a  prelate  of  commanding  character  and 
attainments,  has  striven  to  extend  its  influence  among  the 
Little  Russians  beyond  the  Austrian  frontier  by  urging  upon 
them  the  consideration  that  membership  of  the  Greek  United 
Church  enables  them  to  be  at  once  Catholic  and  Orthodox. 
The  Russian  Synod  has,  for  its  part,  striven  not  without 
success,  to  promote  in  Eastern  Galicia  the  conversion  of 
Ruthene  peasants  from  the  Greek  United  to  the  Orthodox 
faith  ;  and  the  efforts  of  the  Austrian-Polish  authorities  to 
combat  this  propaganda  and  their  disinclination  to  recognize 
the  conversions  that  have  actually  taken  place,  have  given 
rise  to  the  reports  of  religious  persecution  in  Galicia  that 
have  found  their  way  into  the  Western  European  press. 

But  alongside  of  this  largely  political  strife  of  creeds 
runs  a  purely  political  movement  which  "  Vienna "  has  for 
some  years  past  been  at  pains  to  further.  Its  ostensible 
aim  is  the  creation  of  an  autonomous  if  not  an  independent 
Little  Russian  or  Ruthene  province  to  be  called  the  Ukraine 
(the  Borderland),  and  to  consist  of  Eastern  Galicia,  part  of 
the  Bukovina  and  of  the  Little  Russian  districts  of  South- 
Eastern  Russia.  The  controversy  whether  the  Little  Russians 
should  be  called  Little  Russians  or  Ruthenes  would  then  be 
settled  by  calling  them  Ukrainers  or  Borderers.  The  strongest 
party  among  the  Austrian  Ruthenes  has  already  adopted  this 
name  and  has  sought  to  secure  its  adoption  by  the  Little 
Russians  of  Russia.  Exactly  how  much  progress  has  been 
made  in  this  direction  is  not  known.  Russians  say,  "  Practi- 
cally none  "  ;  Austrian  Ukrainers  say,  "  Immense  "  ;  but  there 
is  no  doubt  as  to  the  objects  which  the  Ukrainers  are  pur- 
suing with  the  help  of  "  Vienna  "  and  with  the  encouragement 
of  the  Greek  United  Church.  These  objects  are  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  purely  Ruthene  or  Ukraine  University  at 
Lemberg,  the  capital  of  Galicia ;  the  ejection  of  the  Polish 
landlords  and  authorities  from  Eastern  Galicia  ;  and  the 
establishment  of  an  independent  Ruthene  Diet  at  Lem- 
berg as  the  legislative  organ  of  a  self-governing  Ruthene, 
or  Ukraine,  Hapsburg  province,  that  would  be  destined  to 


FOREIGN  POLICY  291 

be  the  nucleus  of  the  Greater  Ukraine  of  "  Viennese  "  dreams 
— a  Ukraine  to  be  formed  under  Hapsburg  auspices  when, 
with  German  help,  Russia  shall  have  been  duly  defeated  and 
dismembered. 

This  idyllic  programme  is  unfortunately  complicated  by 
the  Polish  question,  not  only  in  its  narrower  Galician  bear- 
ings but  in  its  full  significance  as  a  principal  factor  in  the 
relations  between  Austria-Hungary,  Russia,  and  Germany. 
Until  "  Vienna  "  began  to  encourage  the  Ukraine  movement 
and  to  connive  at  the  efforts  of  the  Ruthene  leaders  to  shake 
off  Polish  supremacy  in  Eastern  Galicia,  the  Austrian  Poles 
were  among  the  most  loyal  and  reliable  subjects  of  the 
Hapsburg  Crown.  The  older  generation  of  Austrian  Poles 
is  loyal  still,  especially  in  Western  Galicia  and  Cracow  where 
the  pinch  of  the  Ruthene  or  Ukraine  movement  is  not  yet 
felt ;  but  among  the  younger  generation  of  Austrian  Poles 
there  are  noticeable  tendencies  towards  Russophilism,  or 
rather  towards  a  conception  of  the  Polish  cause  that  would 
develop  into  Russophilism  were  Russia  sufficiently  far-sighted 
to  mitigate  the  disabilities  under  which  the  Poles  of  Russia 
labour.  The  Austrian  Poles  resent  the  efforts  of  "  Vienna  " 
to  drive  them  in  double  harness  with  the  Ruthenes  along  an 
anti-Russian  road.  They  know  that  the  road  may  end 
on  the  brink  of  a  precipice,  and  find  no  solace  in  the 
reflection  that,  while  the  Hapsburg  Car  of  State  might  be 
saved  at  the  last  moment  by  cutting  the  traces,  the  Poles, 
and  possibly  also  the  Ruthenes,  would  risk  being  dashed  to 
destruction.  The  Austrian  Poles,  moreover,  find  difficulty 
in  co-operating  heartily  with  the  Ruthenes,  to  whom  their 
relationship  has  for  centuries  been  one  of  master  to  servant, 
or  rather  of  landlord  to  peasant.  The  Ruthenes  are  a 
peasant  people.  Their  natural  leaders,  the  aristocracy,  were 
attracted  in  past  centuries  to  the  Polish  or  to  the  Russian 
Court,  and  were  polonized  or  russified.  Many  prominent 
Polish  nobles  are  thus  of  Ruthene  origin.  Hitherto  only 
one  prominent  member  of  these  families,  Mgr.  Count 
Szeptycki,  has  resumed  Ruthene  or  Little  Russian  or 


292  THE   HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

"Ukraine"  nationality,  but  should  the  Ukraine  movement 
progress,  his  example  may  find  imitators.  In  the  meantime 
the  Ukraine  movement  is  led  mainly  by  the  sons  of  the 
Greek  United  clergy  and  by  others  of  low  social  rank  who 
stand  near  enough  to  the  people  to  command  its  confidence. 
Apart  from  its  general  political  aims,  the  movement  bears 
largely  a  Radical  and  almost  anarchical  character  which  has 
more  than  once  found  expression  in  political  assassination. 
The  Conservative  Polish  aristocracy  is  naturally  out  of 
sympathy  with  a  movement  that  threatens  at  once  its 
material  welfare  and  its  political  convictions  ;  and,  despite 
attempts  on  the  part  of  the  Polish  Conservatives  of  Cracow 
to  promote  an  agreement  with  the  Ruthenes  for  a  division 
of  influence  in  the  Diet  of  Lemberg  and  in  Galicia  generally, 
the  prospects  of  peace  between  the  two  races  are  faint.  The 
Roman  Catholic  Archbishops  of  Galicia  intervened  in  the 
spring  of  1913  to  prevent  a  Polish-Ruthene  electoral  settle- 
ment on  the  ground  that  it  would  have  increased  the  influence 
of  anti-religious  and  Radical  elements,  and  especially  of  the 
Jews.  The  Jewish  problem  is  indeed  an  important  factor  in 
the  whole  complex  of  questions  and  tendencies  that  are 
agitating  Galicia  and  Russian  and  Austrian  Poland,  no  less 
than  in  the  Near  Eastern  problem  with  which  those  ques- 
tions are  intimately  connected  ;  and  as  the  realization  of  the 
Ukraine  ideal  and  the  consequent  dismemberment  of  Russia 
would  affect  the  greater  part  of  the  Russian  Jewish  zone 
and  might  free  the  Russian  Jews  from  the  disabilities  and 
restrictions  imposed  upon  them,  Jews  sympathize  as  a  rule 
with  the  Ukraine  cause  and  also  with  the  Polish  cause,  in  so 
far  as  it  is  directed  against  Russia.  The  position  in  which 
Russia  may  be  placed  by  the  Austro-Polish  and  Ukraine 
movements  calls  for  the  careful  attention  of  Russian  states- 
men and  should  lead  them  to  consider  whether  the  system 
of  administrative  oppression  maintained  in  Russian  Poland  is 
not  a  grave  impediment  to  the  freedom  of  Russian  diplomatic, 
if  not  of  Russian  military  action.  The  Russian  Poles  are 
attached  to  Russia  by  strong  ties  of  economic  interest  The 


FOREIGN  POLICY  293 

wide  Russian  market  is  open  to  their  manufacturers  while 
the  Russian  tariff  protects  them  against  German  competi- 
tion. But  no  considerations  of  interest  can  assure  loyalty 
as  long  as  the  Poles  are  governed  by  Russian  bureaucrats 
who  receive  double  pay  for  administering  a  "  rebellious 
province,"  and  may  consequently  be  trusted  not  to  admit 
that  the  province  has  ceased  to  be  insubordinate.  Indeed, 
the  Russian  Tchinovniks  and  the  Okhrana,  or  Political  Police, 
are  under  strong  suspicion  of  having  promoted  sundry 
"  Polish "  revolutionary  manifestations  with  the  object  of 
convincing  the  Tsar's  Government,  and  the  Tsar  himself,  of 
the  necessity  of  maintaining  what  is  practically  a  state  of  siege 
in  Poland.  In  these  endeavours  the  Russian  bureaucracy  is 
strongly  supported  by  German  influence,  which  works,  directly 
and  indirectly,  to  prevent  any  reconciliation  between  Russia 
and  the  Poles,  and  seeks  to  maintain  the  idea  that  the  division 
and  oppression  of  the  "  turbulent  and  undisciplined  "  Polish 
race  is  a  primary  interest  of  Conservative  and  order-loving 
empires  like  Germany  and  Russia ! 

The  question  of  Poland  which  grew  out  of  the  Eastern 
Question  in  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  may 
again  be  brought  into  the  foreground  of  European  politics 
by  the  semi-solution  of  the  Near  Eastern  Question  during 
the  recent  Balkan  wars  ;  and,  as  the  late  M.  Albert  Sorel 
acutely  foresaw,  it  may,  in  conjunction  with  the  Southern  Slav 
question,  raise,  sooner  or  later,  the  "  Question  of  Austria." 
The  eyes  of  the  Hapsburg  Monarchy,  long  turned  covet- 
ously towards  the  Balkan  Peninsula,  may,  unless  Austro- 
Hungarian  diplomacy  can  completely  undo  by  intrigue  the 
effects  of  the  Balkan  wars,  presently  be  constrained  to  look 
in  another  direction.  Should  the  Monarchy  seek  a  new 
orientation,  its  efforts  may  tend  in  the  direction  indicated 
by  the  Austro-Polish  and  Ukraine  movements — movements 
which  cannot,  however,  attain  their  objects  without  active 
co-operation  between  Austria-Hungary  and  Germany.  The 
antagonism  between  Austria-Hungary  and  Russia  that  grew 


294  THE   HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 

up  in  consequence  of  Baron  von  Aehrenthal's  abandonment 
of  the  Murzsteg  basis  and  of  his  annexation  policy,  enabled 
Germany  again  to  assume  the  direction  of  Austro-Hungarian 
foreign  affairs  and  to  "  mediate  "  profitably  between  Vienna 
and  St.  Petersburg.  In  Austria-Hungary  apprehensions  are 
sometimes  expressed,  and  are  more  often  felt  than  expressed, 
lest  Russia  and  Germany  one  day  agree  to  partition  the 
Hapsburg  dominions.  If  not  baseless,  these  apprehensions 
are  certainly  exaggerated.  Germany  seems  unlikely  to  con- 
sent to  any  essential  dismemberment  of  Austria-Hungary  as 
long  as  the  German  Empire  is  able,  by  a  policy  of  economic 
and  political  penetration,  to  use  the  Monarchy  as  its  instru- 
ment. A  main  object  of  this  penetration  is  to  give  Germany 
command  of  the  route  to  Trieste  and,  through  the  Adriatic, 
to  the  Mediterranean.  The  Hapsburg  Monarchy  will  prob- 
ably be  exposed  to  no  mortal  peril  as  long  as  it  refrains 
from  serious  insubordination  to  Germany ;  and  should  a 
European  conflagration  ever  arise  out  of  the  numerous  un- 
solved international  issues  in  Europe  or  the  Near  East, 
the  Monarchy  might  hope,  in  the  event  of  victory,  to 
obtain  with  German  help  a  considerable  slice  of  Russian 
territory.  In  the  event  of  defeat  its  existence,  like  that 
of  the  German  Empire  in  its  present  form,  might  be  en- 
dangered. But  catastrophic  hypotheses  are  best  left  out 
of  account  in  these  days  of  intertwined  interests  and  of 
armies  so  colossal  that  defeat  could  hardly  fail  to  be 
attended  by  revolutions  fatal  to  thrones  and  to  the  existing 
social  order ;  and  calm  consideration  of  the  complicated 
factors  involved  leads  rather  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
Hapsburg  Monarchy  has  but  one  sure  way  of  escape  from  its 
difficulties  into  a  more  prosperous  and  tranquil  future — the 
way  of  evolution,  gradual  or  rapid  as  circumstances  may 
permit,  towards  a  form  of  internal  organization  better  adapted 
than  the  Dual  System  to  the  permanent  needs  of  its  peoples. 
A  far-sighted  Polish  statesman  of  Little  Russian  stock  and 
wide  German  and  classical  culture  was  wont  to  define  the 
ideal  form  of  the  Monarchy  as  a  "  Slav  house  with  a  German 


FOREIGN   POLICY  295 

facade "  ;  but,  like  most  framers  of  formulas,  he  paid  too 
little  heed  to  the  standpoint  of  the  Dynasty  and  ignored  the 
question  whether  the  House  of  Hapsburg  will  be  able  so  to 
adapt  itself  to  altered  circumstances  as  to  renounce  its  ancient 
traditions  and  to  content  itself  with  the  prestige  that  comes 
of  ruling  justly  over  peoples  free  to  manage  their  own  affairs 
and  spontaneously  loyal  to  the  Monarch  as  their  Supreme 
Moderator.  The  power  of  the  Hapsburg  Dynasty  is  still  the 
strongest  element  in  the  Monarchy — stronger,  in  the  last 
resort,  than  the  influence  of  the  Austrian  Germans,  the 
Austrian  Slavs,  the  Magyars,  the  Church,  or  the  Jews.  Its 
power  is  still,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  absolute  ;  but  it  is 
exposed  to  the  danger  that  threatens  all  absolutisms,  be  they 
military,  political,  religious  or  financial — the  danger  of  regard- 
ing their  own  existence  as  an  end  in  itself,  and  of  allowing 
their  conduct  to  be  guided  solely  by  considerations  of  short- 
range  expediency.  Such  considerations  are  poor  substitutes 
for  the  principle  proudly  inscribed  on  the  outer  gateway  of  the 
Vienna  Burg,"Justitia  Regnorum  Fundamentum."  In  a  polity 
divided  as  to  race,  public  opinion  and  power  of  resistance 
into  a  dozen  entities,  the  triumph  of  a  non-ethical  standpoint 
of  government  is  singularly  facilitated.  Yet,  in  an  era  when 
race  affinities  are  strong  and  economic  interests  increasingly 
potent,  a  dynasty  and  its  ministers  need  to  be  guided  by 
maxims  more  lofty  than  those  that  spring  from  the  apparent 
balance  of  immediate  advantage.  If  the  Hapsburg  Dynasty 
is  to  retain  the  power  it  has  hitherto  wielded  and,  while 
remaining  indispensable  to  its  own  peoples,  to  become  a 
centre  of  attraction  and  a  symbol  of  good  government  to 
peoples  outside  its  dominions,  it  must  rise  superior  to  the 
lower  expediency  represented  by  the  line  of  least  resistance 
and  comprehend  the  perennial  efficacy  of  the  higher  expedi- 
ency represented  by  the  principle  of  Justice. 


INDEX 


Abbot,  G.  E.,  quoted,  163. 
Abdul  Hamid,  Sultan,  237,  238. 
Absolutism,    revival    of,    in    Austria, 

34-9- 

Adler,  Dr.  Victor,  Austrian  Socialist 
leader,  134-5,  156. 

Adowa,  1896,  274. 

Aehrenthal,  Baron  von,  Joint  Minister 
for  Foreign  Affairs,  53,  190,  199,  237, 
294,  Abandonment  of  Judicial  Re- 
form in  Macedonia  in  return  for  con- 
cession for  construction  of  railway 
through  Sanjak  of  Novi  Bazar,  234- 
7,  and  Abrogation  of  Clause  3  of 
Murzsteg  Programme  of  Macedonian 
reform,  222  note,  and  Annexation  of 
Bosnia-Herzegovina,  214,  243-63, 
Austro-Turkish  Convention,  1909, 
255,  Character  and  work,  227-9, 
267,  Controversy  with  M.  Isvolsky, 
1909,  265,  proposed  Entente  a  quatre, 
230  -  i,  233,  Foreign  policy,  228, 
233,  263-7,  275,  276,  279-80,  and 
Friedjung  trial,  1909,  100,  101,  103, 
104-5,  and  Macedonian  Reform,  229- 
30,  Meeting  with  M.  Isvolsky  at 
Buchlau,  Sept.  1908,  247-50,  Modi- 
fication of  Treaty  of  Berlin,  1909, 
255-6,  and  alleged  Serbo-Croatian 
plot,  260. 

Agram  High  Treason  trial,  1907-8,  190, 
243,  259. 

Albania,  agreement  between  Austria 
and  Italy  concerning,  226,  274,  276-7. 

Albert,  Archduke,  72. 

Alexander  II.,  Tsar  of  Russia,  meeting 
with  Emperor  Francis  Joseph  at 
Reichstadt,  1876,  213. 

Alexander,  King  of  Servia,  assassina- 
tion, 1903,  240-2. 

Algeciras  Conference,  1906,  226-7. 
adrassy,  Count,  the  Elder,  9. 

AnVrassy,  Count,  20,  21,  22,  29,  33,  52, 


68,  265,  269,  272,  Appointment  as 
Minister  of  the  Imperial  Household 
and  for  Foreign  Affairs,  23,  and 
Austro-German  Alliance,  216,  and 
Dual  system,  211,  Foreign  policy,  23- 
8,  208,  211-12,  233,  and  Occupation 
of  Bosnia- Herzegovina,  214-16,  and 
Revision  of  San  Stefano  Treaty, 
238-9. 

Antivari,  opening  of,  as  free  port,  1909, 
256. 

Arbeiter  Zeitung,  the,  organ  of  Social 
Democratic  party,  135,  190,  191. 

Aristocracy,  influence,  position  of,  etc., 

i3i-4- 

Army,  60-73,  Administration,  63-4, 
Languages,  64-6,  Magyar  attacks  on 
unitary  character  of,  68-70,  Military 
families,  62,  Officers,  61-2,  Organiza- 
tions, 63,  Red  tape  and  mandarin- 
ism,  70,  Title  of  "  Imperial  and 
Royal,"  32. 

Army  Order  of  Sept.  16,  1903,  66-7. 

Army,  Hungarian,  Magyar  demand  for 
substitution  of  Magyar  for  German 
language,  32-3. 

Austrian  Constitution  of  1848,  14. 

Austrian  Constitutional  Statute  of 
1876,  17-20,  33. 

Austrian  Federal  Constitution  of  1860, 
15- 

Austrian-Germans  :  Opposition  to  an- 
nexation of  Bosnia-Herzegovina,  214- 
15,  Relations  with  Emperor,  1867- 
1906,  10. 

Austro-Hungarian  bank,  gold  policy, 
139-40. 

Bach,  Alexander,  and  Concordat  with 
Rome,  1855,  114,  115,  "  System  "  of, 
14-15,  24,  56,  99,  210. 

Badeni,  M.,  Austrian  Premier,  Dis- 
missal, 9,  34,  Introduction  of  uni- 


297 


298 


THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 


versal  suffrage  section  into  Austrian 
franchise  system,  33-4,  Language 
ordinances,  34,  116. 

Bahr,  Hermann,  6,  203,  205,  Confisca- 
tion of  book,  Wien,  122-3. 

Balkans,  Austro-  Russian  agreement, 
1897,  219-20,  M.  Isvolsky's  Aide- 
memoire  to  Baron  von  Aehrenthal, 
244. 

Balkan  War,  effect  on  Hapsburg 
Monarchy,  207-9. 

Banffy,  M.,  Hungarian  Premier,  9. 

Bank-notes,  65,  289. 

Beidtel,  Dr.  Ignaz,  95. 

Belcredi,  M.,  Austrian  Premier,  16. 

Benedek,  General,  case  of,  9,  71-3. 

Berchtold,  Count,  Austro-Hungarian 
Ambassador  at  St.  Petersburg,  235, 
248,  277,  279-80. 

Berlin  Congress,  213,  239. 

Berlin,  Treaty  of,  modification  of 
Article  XXIX.,  1909,  255-6. 

Bessarabia,  annexation  of  part  by 
Russia,  1878,  287. 

Beust,  Count,  Austrian  Imperial 
Chancellor,  9-10,  16,  17,  21,  22,  23, 
27,  32, 116,  Fall  of,  1871, 12,  Resigna- 
tion, 23. 

Bieberstein,  Baron  Marschall  von,  218 
and  note,  obstruction  of  Judicial 
Reform  in  Macedonia,  235. 

Birth-rate,  illegitimate,  118. 

Bismarck,  Prince,  17,  27,  28,  56, 
155,  209,  212,  270,  Attitude  as  re- 
gards Italy,  269,  270-2,  273,  and 
Austro-German  Alliance,  216-18,  and 
Occupation  of  Bosnia-Herzegovina, 
216,  and  Revision  of  San  Stefano 
treaty,  239,  secret  Re -Insurance 
Treaty  with  Russia,  1884,  217-19. 

Bohemian  Diet,  rescripts  to,  1870  and 

l87l,   21-2. 

Bosnia,  rising,  239-40. 

Bosnia-Herzegovina,  Annexation,  1908, 
10,  52-5,  214,  215,  239,  243-63,  276, 
Austro  -  Russian  convention,  1878, 
213-14,  Grant  of  Constitutional 
autonomy  to,  215,  245,  Occupation, 
1878-9,  10,  26,  211,  214-16,  270, 
Position  of  inhabitants,  215. 

Briinn,  failure  of  Czechs  to  obtain 
university  at,  127. 

Budapest,  Jewish  influence,  168-9. 

Billow,  Prince,  German  Chancellor,  218 
note,  230,  231,  236,  268,  278,  and 
Annexation  of  Bosnia-Herzegovina, 
261-3. 


Bukovina,  Austrian  attitude  towards 
Rumanes  of,  288-9. 

Bulgaria,  proceedings  re  proclama- 
tion of  independence,  247-53. 

Bureaucracy,  the,  73-90. 

Calice,  Count,  reference,  133. 

Caprivi,  Count,  refusal  to  continue 
reciprocal  insurance  with  Russia, 
217  note,  219. 

Carol,  Prince,  288. 

Casablanca  incident,  266. 

Catholicism,  Conversion  of  Austria  to,  5. 

Cavour,  Count,  108,  208,  209,  275  note. 

Central  Society  of  German  Citizens  of 
Jewish  Faith,"  anti-Zionist  resolu- 
tion, 1913,  177- 

Charles  VI.,  Hapsburg  Emperor,  112. 

Charles  Francis  Joseph,  Archduke,  50, 
marriage  to  Princess  Zita  of  Bourbon- 
Parma,  50-1. 

Chotek,  Countess  Sophie,  marriage, 
see  under  Francis  Ferdinand,  Arch- 
duke. 

Christian  Social  party,  134,  191. 

Church,  the,  105-119,  Concordat  with 
Rome,  1855,  114-16,  Decree  of  March 
3,  1792,  106-7,  Laxity  of  morals,  117- 
18,  Position  of,  107,  118-19,  Relation 
to  people,  117-18,  Religionsfonds,  114. 

Clemenceau,  M.  Georges,  199. 

Clement  XIII.,  112. 

Clement  XIV.,  113. 

Colloredo,  Count,  development  of 
police  system  by,  93,  "  System  "  of, 
86-8. 

Constitutional  Decree  or  "  Patent "  of 
1861,  24,  210. 

Corti,  Count,  Italian  Foreign  Minister, 
270. 

Court  Theatre,  failure  to  obtain  re- 
moval of  ban  on  certain  comedy,  74-5. 

Crispi,  Signor,  270,  271,  272,  274. 

Currency  system,  138-40. 

Czech  language,   Badeni's  ordinances, 

34- 
Czechs,  failure  to  obtain  university  at 

Briinn,  127. 
Czernin,  Count,  anecdote  of,  133. 

Dalmatia,  Claim  to,  by  Magyars,  284, 
naval  and  military  manoeuvres,  1906, 
257-8. 

Danilo,  Prince,  of  Montenegro,  258. 

Deak,  Magyar  statesman,  21,  24,  29,  52, 
68,  69,  208,  211,  Negotiations  with 
Emperor  Francis  Joseph,  15-16. 


INDEX 


299 


Depretis,  M.,  foreign  policy,  273. 

Diplomatic  service,  132-3. 

Disraeli,  Benjamin,  and  revision  of  San 
Stefano  Treaty,  239. 

Draga,  Queen,  assassination,  1903, 
240-2. 

Dual  system,  17-39,  as  Check  on  Im- 
perialist expansion,  211,  Danger  to 
monarchy  from,  282,  283-5,  Features 
of,  17-20,  Negotiations,  11-17. 

Eastern  question,  211. 

Edward  VII.,  King  of  England,  231-2, 
237,  246,  247,  252,  264,  267. 

Egypt,  agreement  between  England 
and  France,  1904,  232. 

Eisenmann,  Professor  Louis,  15,  31. 

Eleonora,  Princess,  of  Bulgaria,  252. 

Emperor  of  Austria,  position  of,  4,  7-8, 
39-42- 

England:  Agreement  with  France,  1904, 
concerning  Egypt  and  Morocco,  232, 
Attitude  re  occupation  and  annexa- 
tion of  Bosnia  -  Herzegovina,  213, 
263-4,  Attitude  re  Russo-Japanese 
War,  231,  232,  Convention  with 
Russia,  1907,  234,  Entente  cordiale 
with  France,  231-2,  Improvement  in 
relations  with  Russia  after  Russo- 
Japanese  War,  232-3,  and  Mace- 
donian reform,  221-3,  237-8,  Naval 
convention  with  Italy,  273,  Relations 
with,  263-4. 

Eotvos,  M.,  30. 

Eucharist  Congress,  Vienna,  1912,  108, 
117. 

Fackel,  the,  192-3. 
Fallieres,  President,  250. 
Faure,  President,  217  note. 
Feldkirch,  Jesuit  institution,  in. 
Ferdinand  I.,   Austrian  Emperor,   25, 

Attitude  towards  Church,  107. 
Ferdinand  II.,   Emperor,  relations  to 

Church,  107,  112,  Transformation  of 

Austria  into  Catholic  country,  5. 
Ferdinand,  King  of  Bulgaria,  251-3. 
Financial  and  industrial  undertakings, 

bureaucratization  of,  140-2. 
Fiume,    importance    of,    to    Magyars, 

283. 
Foreign  Office,   Literary  Department, 

194-9. 
Fournier,  Professor,  Wie  wir  zu  Bosnien 

kamen  referred  to,  214. 
France:  Agreement  with  England,  1904, 

re  Egypt  and  Morocco,  232,  Attempt 


to  gain  free  access  to  money-market 
of,  266,  Entente  cordiale  with 
England,  231-2,  proposed  Inclusion 
in  Austro- Russian  understanding  of 
1897, 230-1,233,  Italian  relations,  273, 
and  Macedonian  reform,  223-4,  Pied- 
montese  Alliance,  1859,  209,  Rela- 
tions with,  265-6. 

Francis  I.,  Emperor  of  Austria : 
Assumption  of  title  of  Emperor  of 
Austria,  1804,  12,  Attitude  towards 
Church,  107,  Policy  of,  86-7. 

Francis  Ferdinand,  Archduke,  116,  234, 
Marriage  with  Countess  Sophie 
Chotek,  46-9,  at  Naval  and  Military 
manoeuvres  in  Southern  Dalmatia, 
1906,  258. 

Francis  Joseph,  Emperor  of  Austria  : 
Adoption  of  title  "  Emperor  of 
Austria  .  .  .  and  Apostolic  King  of 
Hungary,"  32,  annexation  of  Bosnia- 
Herzegovina  desired  by,  212-13,  214, 
anti-German  policy,  216-17,  Attitude 
towards  Church,  107,  Attitude  to- 
wards oppression  of  subjects,  30-1, 
and  Austro-German  Alliance,  216, 
Characteristics,  etc.,  2,  55-8,  Clerical 
and  pro-Slav  policy,  212,  friendship 
with  King  Edward  and  visit  from, 
246,  264,  Interview  and  relations 
with  Ferdinand  of  Bulgaria,  252, 
Meetings  with  Tsar,  213,  219,  221, 
Negotiations  with  Magyars,  11-17, 
Relations  to  officers,  71,  Treatment 
of  political  agents  and  advisers,  etc., 
8-1 1,  133,  Visit  to  King  Victor 
Emmanuel,  1875,  269. 

Francis  Joseph,  Archduke,  51. 

Frankfurt,  Diet  of  Princes,  56. 

Freedom  of  the  people,  extent,  etc., 
136-7. 

Fremdenblatt,  the,  189,  219,  241-2,  260. 

Friedjung,  Dr. :  Articles  re  alleged 
Serbo-Croatian  plot,  245,  260,  262, 
Exclusion  from  Austrian  Pan-German 
party,  173,  Quoted  re  meeting  be- 
tween Isvolsky  and  Aehrenthal  at 
Buchlau,  1908,  249,  Trial,  Dec.  1909, 
100-5,  I25>  I9°>  259-60. 

Fromer,  Dr.  Jakob,  151,  160-2,  165-6, 
178. 

Galgotzy,  General,  70-1. 

Galicia :     Jewish   influx   into   Vienna, 

148,  Jews  in,  number  and  position, 

149-50. 
Garibaldi,  Giuseppe,  269. 


300 


THE   HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 


Garibaldi,  General  Ricciotti,  276. 

German  language,  32-3,  65-6,  86. 

Germany,  alliance  with,  1879,  26-7,  212, 
216-18,  and  Annexation  of  Bosnia- 
Herzegovina,  261-3,  Danger  from, 
283,  294,  proposed  Inclusion  in 
Austro  -  Russian  understanding  of 
1897,  230-1,  233,  Increasing  in- 
fluence in  Adriatic,  281,  Policy  of 
retaining  sway  in,  209,  Press  bureau, 
co-operation  with  Austrian  bureau, 
198,  secret  Re-Insurance  Treaty 
with  Russia,  1884,  217-19,  273,  Re- 
lations with  Italy,  270-3. 

Gioacchino  Pecci,  Pope,  see  Leo  XIII. 

Goiuchowski,  Count,  Joint  Foreign 
Minister,  32,  267,  Agreement  with 
Italy  re  Albania,  226,  and  Agreement 
with  Russia  re  Balkans,  219,  and 
Algeciras  Conference,  226-7,  and 
Annexation  of  Bosnia-Herzegovina, 
240,  Attitude  towards  Servia,  242-3, 
Character,  227,  and  Macedonian 
Reform,  220-2,  223,  225-6,  Relations 
with  Italy,  274,  279-80,  Retire- 
ment, 9,  227,  Visit  to  King  Humbert 
at  Monza,  1897,  274. 

Gorjainoff,  M.,  The  Bosphorus  and  the 
Dardanelles  referred  to,  214. 

Gortchakoff,  Prince,  288,  Attitude  re 
occupation  of  Bosnia-Herzegovina, 
213. 

Goschen,  Sir  W.  E.,  British  Ambas- 
sador to  Austro-Hungarian  Court, 
communication  with  Baron  von 
Aehrenthal  re  proclamation  of  Bul- 
garian independence,  250-1. 

Grey,  Sir  Edward,  237,  263. 

Grillparzer,  quoted,  60. 

Grogan,  Lady,  223  note. 

Guiccioli,  Count  Alessandro,  273. 

Hapsburg  dynasty,  power  of,  295. 

Hapsburg  family  law,  42-58. 

Harden,   Maximilian,  193. 

Hardinge,  Viscount :  and  Abrogation 
of  Clause  3  of  Murzsteg  Programme  of 
Macedonian  Reform,  222  note,  and 
Macedonian  Reform,  237-8. 

Harvey,  Sir  Henry  Paul,  Abrogation  of 
Clause  3  of  Murzsteg  Programme  of 
Macedonian  Reform  due  to,  223 
note. 

Haugwitz,  M.  (c.  1765),  84. 

Haymerle,  M.,  212. 

Heine,  Heinrich,  170,  193. 

Herzl,    Theodor,    founder  :  of    Zionist 


movement,  and  literary  editor  of  the 
Neue  Freie  Presse,  175,  192. 

Hirschfeld,  George,  158. 

Hotzendorf,  General  Baron  Conrad  von, 
opposition  of  Aehrenthal  to,  277. 

Hofrichter,  Lieutenant,  case  of,  97. 

Hohenburg,  Duchess  of,  marriage,  see 
under  Francis  Ferdinand,  Archduke. 

Hohenlohe,  Prince,  217  note. 

Hohenwart,  M.,  Austrian  premier,  9, 
22-24,  27. 

Holstein,  Herr  von,  261. 

Hontheim,  Johann  von,  Bishop-Suf- 
ragan  of  Treves,  "Justus  Febronius," 
112. 

Hiibner,  Count,  133. 

Humbert,  King,  of  Italy  :  Visit  from 
Count  Goiuchowski  at  Monza,  1897, 
274,  Visit  to  Vienna,  1881,  268,  272. 

Hungarian  Constitutional  Statute  XII. 
of  1867,  17-20,  28,  33-4,  36-9. 

Hungarian  Law  III.  of  1848,  13-14. 

Hussein  Hilmi  Pasha,  Inspector- 
General,  Macedonia,  221,  222. 

Illegitimate  birth-rate,  118. 

Imperial  Ordinance  of  July  1904,  39. 

Industrial  Code,  137. 

Internal  crises,  1903-6,  225. 

Isvolsky,  M.,  236,  237,  261,  276,  Aide- 
memoire  on  Balkan  question,  244, 
and  Annexation  of  Bosnia-Herze- 
govina, 247-8,  261-2,  Controversy 
with  Count  Aehrenthal,  1909,  265, 
and  proposed  Entente  a  quatre,  230-1, 
233,  and  Macedonian  reform,  229, 
234'5>  237-8,  Meeting  with  Baron  von 
Aehrenthal  at  Buchlau,  Sept.  1908, 
247-50. 

Italian  law  school,  attitude  of  Govern- 
ment towards,  127. 

Italians  of  Dalmatia,  attitude  of 
Austrian  Government  towards,  125-6. 

Italians  of  Trieste,  attitude  of  Austrian 
Government  towards,  126-7. 

Italy :  Agreement  with,  re  Albania, 
226,  274,  276-7,  Foreign  policy,  268- 
72,  Interest  in  Southern  Slav 
question,  280-1,  and  Macedonian 
Reform,  223-5,  Military  convention 
with,  272,  Naval  Convention  with 
England,  273,  Relations  with,  209, 
254,  267,  274-81. 

Japan,  war  with  Russia,  231-2. 

Jesuits,  109-13,  115. 

Jews,  145-81,  Anti-semitism,  148,  159- 


INDEX 


301 


60,  Assimilationists,  167,  Attempt 
to  pose  as  Germans  and  associate 
themselves  with  Germanism,  172-5, 
Attitude  of  Maria  Theresa  towards, 
and  progress  under  Joseph  II.,  85-6, 
Attitude  towards  Ukraine  and 
Polish  causes,  292,  Control  of  press, 
181-2,  184-8,  Diminishing  influence 
in  and  over  big  capitalist  under- 
takings, 154-5,  and  possible  effect  of 
establishment  of  Jewish  state,  179, 
Ghettos,  150-1,  Importance  of,  145-6, 
Literary  inferiority  of,  in  German, 
193-4,  Mishna  code,  164,  Radicalism 
and  socialism  among,  155-7,  Sephar- 
dim  and  Ashkenazim,  147,  170, 
Summary  of  Professor  Werner  Som- 
bart's  thesis,  151-4,  The  Talmud,  and 
bearing  of,  on  Jewish  question,  164-7, 
Zionist  movement,  175-80. 

Jewish  question,  difficulty  of,  145-7. 

John,  General,  War  Minister,  72. 

Joseph  I.,  Hapsburg  Emperor,  112. 

Joseph  II.,  Hapsburg  Emperor,  56, 
Attempt  to  establish  German  as 
single  state  language,  86,  Attitude 
towards  Church,  107, 109, 113-14, 117, 
Development  of  Police  system,  90-2, 
Jews  partially  emancipated  by,  85, 
Memorandum  on  condition  of 
Austrian  Monarchy,  1765,  7,  78, 
Reforming  policy  of,  5-7,  Transforma- 
tion of  feudal  state  into  centralized 
polity,  85-6. 

Judges,  position,  99-100. 

"  Justament  "  spirit,  75. 

Justice,  98-105. 

Kalksburg,  Jesuit  institution,  in. 

Kallay,  M.  de,  Joint  Austro-Hungarian 
Finance  Minister  and  Chief  Secretary 
for  Bosnia-Herzegovina,  and  Assas- 
sination of  King  Alexander,  241. 

Kalnoky,  Count,  Joint  Foreign  Minister 
31,  32,  217,  267,  270,  272,  273. 

Kaunitz  (1764),  112. 

Khevenhiiller-Metsch,  Count,  Austro- 
Hungarian  Ambassador  to  French 
Republic,  Interview  with  President 
Fallieres,  Oct.  3,  1908,  250,  251. 

Koerber,  M.,  Austrian  Premier,  9,  38. 

Kolowrat,  M.,  6. 

Kraus,  Karl,  editor,  proprietor  and 
staff  of  the  Fackel,  192,  193. 

Krones,  M.,  quoted,  8. 

Klirnberger,  Ferdinand,  60,  75,  104, 
I55,  193,  206. 


Lamsdorff,  Count,  Russian  Foreign 
Minister,  and  Macedonian  Reform, 

22O-2. 

Language  question,  34,  64-6,  86, 
116,  289. 

Lansdowne,  Lord,  221-3,  231. 

Lassalle,  M.,  founder  of  German  Social 
Democratic  party,  134,  155. 

Laveleye,  M.  de,  quoted,  28. 

Laybach,  Congress  of,  94. 

Lemberg,  289,  290,  292. 

Leo  XIII.,  271. 

Leopold  I.,  Hapsburg  Emperor,  112. 

Leopold  II.,  Hapsburg  Emperor,  De- 
cree of  March  3,  1792,  106, 
Police  system  under,  92-3,  Policy 
of,  86. 

Lissa,  battle  of,  73. 

Lombardy,  loss  of,  209. 

"  Los  von  Rom  !  "  34,  116,  117. 

Lueger,  Dr.,  84,  88,  116,  155,  182, 
Appointment  as  Burgomaster  of 
Vienna,  123-4,  Growth  of  loyal 
German  "  Christian  Social  "  party 
under,  34. 

Macedonia  :  Abandonment  of  Judicial 
Reform  by  Austria-Hungary  in  return 
for  concession  for  construction  of 
railway  through  Sanjak  of  Novi 
Bazar,  229-30,  234-7,  International 
Commission  for  control  of  finance 
of,  223,  Reform,  220-5,  229,  234, 
237-8. 

MacMahon,  Marshal,  President  of 
French  Republic,  269. 

Magenta,  1859,  15. 

Magyar  language,  32-4,  65. 

Magyars,  4-5,  283-4,  Attacks  on  unitary 
character  of  the  Army,  68-70, 
Chauvinism,  29-30,  Claim  to  Dal- 
matia,  284,  Negotiations  with,  11-17, 
Opposition  to  acquisition  and  an- 
nexation of  Bosnia  -  Herzegovina, 
2ii,  214-5,  Opposition  to  Army 
Order  of  Sept.  16,  1903,  67, 
Separatist  tendency  of,  51-2. 

Mancini,  Italian  Foreign  Minister,  270. 

Margherita,  Queen,  visit  to  Vienna, 
1881,  272. 

Maria  Theresa,  Empress,  7,  172,  283, 
Attitude  towards  Church,  107,  112, 
Attitude  towards  Jews,  85,  Judicial 
system  under,  99,  Police  system 
under,  92,  Transformation  of  feudal 
state  into  centralized  polity,  84-5. 

Marczali,  Professor  Henrik,  7,  55. 


302 


THE   HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 


Markovitch,  Dr.  Bozo,  and  Friedjung 

case,  102. 
Martini,  85. 
Marx,  Karl,  134,  155. 
Masaryk,     Professor,     and     Friedjung 

case,  1909,  104,  260. 
Menelek,  274. 

Metternich,  M.,  23,  56,  86,  87,  107,  206. 
Michiewicz,  206. 

Migazzi,  Archbishop  of  Vienna,  113. 
Milan  Obrenovitch,  King  of  Servia,  239, 

Abdication,  1889,  240. 
Milovanovitch,  Servian  Foreign  Minis- 
ter, 247,  263. 

Minghetti,  Italian  Minister,  269. 
Mirko,    son    of    Prince    Nicholas    of 

Montenegro,  241. 
Modling,    monument    to    Kiirnberger 

and  Schoffel,  75. 
Mohacs,  1526,  69. 
Moltke,  General,  56. 
Montenegro  :  Frontier  rectification,  213, 

Opening  of  waters  to  warships  of  all 

nations,  1909,  256. 
Morocco,  Agreement  between  England 

and  France,  1904,  232. 
Morocco  crisis,  226,  265. 
Muravieff,  Russian  Foreign  Minister, 

and    agreement    with    Austria    re 

Balkans,  219-20. 

Napoleon  I.,  61. 

Napoleon  III.,  269. 

Nastitch,  "  revelations "  offered  to 
Hungarian  Government,  1907,  re 
pan-Serb  propaganda,  258. 

Nathalie,  Queen  of  Servia,  240. 

Navy,  title  of  Imperial  and  Royal,  32. 

Neue  Freie  Presse,  182,  186-8,  190,  192, 

199,   2OI,   262. 

Neues  Wiener  Tagblatt,  188-9,  201. 

Niazi  Bey,  Major,  238. 

Nicholas  II.,  Tsar  of  Russia,  217  note, 
219,  221,  237. 

Nicholas,  Prince,  241,  256. 

Novi  Bazar  Railway,  abandonment  of 
Judicial  Reform  in  Macedonia  in  re- 
turn for  concession  for,  229-30, 

234-7- 
Novoe  Vremya,  265. 

Officials :  Appointment,  by  political 
influences  and  "  protection,"  89,  In- 
adequacy of  salaries,  88-9,  Multiplica- 
tion of,  78-80,  88,  129-30,  Tendency 
to  pass  into  service  of  private  and 


semi- private  undertakings,  143-4, 
Training,  89. 

Oppenheimer,  Dr.  Franz,  German 
Zionist,  1 80. 

Orenoque,  French  cruiser,  at  Civita- 
vecchia, 269. 

Paar,  Count,  Emperor's  aide-de-camp, 

258. 
Pallavicini,  Marquis,  Austro-Hungarian 

Ambassador       at       Constantinople, 

obstruction    of  Judicial   Reform  in 

Macedonia,  235. 
Parliament :    Control   by  Government 

and  agents  over  parties  and  members, 

123,     Political     corruption,     121-2, 

Position  of,  120-1,  Value  for  defence 

of    public    interests    and    liberties, 

123. 

Peasant  class,  position,  130-1. 
Pester  Lloyd,  the,  192. 
Peter  Karageorgevitch,  King,  240,  241. 
Piedmont,  alliance  with  France,  1859, 

209. 

Pius  IX.,  271. 
Pius  X.,  108. 
Plevna,  288. 
Police,  90-8,  "  Confidents"  etc.,  system 

of,     92,    95,    Development,     90  -  3, 

Functions,    90  - 1,     Relations    with 

people,  96-8. 
Polish  question,  291-3. 
Potocki,  Count  Andrew,  133. 
Pourtales,  Count,  German  Ambassador 

to  Russian  Court,  262. 
Pragmatic  Sanction,  13,  21,  42-3,  45, 

47- 
Press,   181-194,  Jewish  control,  181-2, 

184-8,    Position   of,    and   extent   of 

State  control,  120,  182-4,  Quality  of, 

200-1. 

Press  Bureaux,  the,  194-201. 
Prinetti,  Italian  Foreign  Minister,  280. 
"  Programme  of  the  Nine,"  67-8. 
Prussian  Poles,  temporary  veto  placed 

by  Aehrenthal  upon  expropriation  of, 

266. 
Puzyna,      Cardinal,      Archbishop      of 

Cracow,  107-8. 

Radetzky,  60. 

Railways,  nationalization,  83. 

Rampolla,     Cardinal,     Imperial     veto 

against  election  of,  as  Pope,   1903, 

107-8. 
Rappaport,    Herr,    Austro-Hungarian 

Civil  Agent  in  Macedonia,  245. 


INDEX 


303 


Rauscher,  Mgr.,  Archbishop  of  Vienna, 
Concordat  with  Rome,  1855,  114, 

115- 

Redlich,  Professor  Joseph,  78-9. 
Reichspost,  the,  190,  191. 
Ristitch,    M.,    Diplomatic    History    of 

Seraia  referred  to,  215. 
Robilant,    Count    di,    foreign    policy, 

273- 

Rome,  Concordat  with,  1855,  114-16. 

Rudolph,  Archduke,  212. 

Rumania,  Agreements  with,  after  for- 
mation of  Triple  Alliance,  288. 

Rumanian  Irredentism,  problem  of, 
287-8. 

Russell,  John,  A  Tour  in  Germany, 
etc.,  quoted,  93-5. 

Russia,  Agreement  with,  re  Balkans, 
1897,  219-20,  Attitude  towards 
annexation  of  Bosnia-Herzegovina, 
238-9,  244,  253-4,  261-2,  Attitude 
towards  Austrian  Ruthenes,  289,  Con- 
vention with  England,  1907,  234, 
Danger  from,  283,  Estrangement  of 
Rumania  by  annexation  of  part  of 
Bessarabia,  1878,  287,  Improvement 
of  relations  with  England  after 
Russo-Japanese  War,  232-3,  and 
Macedonian  reform,  220-5,  229,  234- 
5,  237-8,  Re-Insurance  Treaty  with 
Germany,  217-19,  273,  Relations 
with,  265,  293-4,  Secret  convention 
with,  1878,  213-14,  Understanding 
with,  of  1897,  and  proposed  in- 
clusion of  Germany  and  France, 
230-1,  233. 

Russo-Japanese  War,  231-2. 

Ruthenes,  or  Little  Russians,  Attitude 
of  Government  towards,  127-9, 
Position  of,  289,  291,  Ukraine  move- 
ment, 290-2. 

Ruthene  language,  289. 

Sadowa,  1866,  12,  16,  56,  210. 

St.  Simon,  Count  Brassier  de,  Prussian 
Minister  at  Turin  (1860),  275  note. 

Salonica,  International  Commission 
formed  at,  for  control  of  Macedonian 
finance,  223. 

Sanjak,  Occupation,  213,  Abandon- 
ment, 214,  236. 

San  Stefano,  Treaty,  239,  Revision,  25, 
213,  239. 

Schleinitz,  Prussian  Foreign  Minister, 
note  to  Cavour,  1860,  275  note. 

Schmerling,  Herr,  15,  56. 

Schnitzler  (modern  Jewish  writer),  158. 


Schoffel,  forest  girdle  of  Vienna  saved 
by,  75- 

Schoenerer,  Herr,  founder  of  Austrian 
Pan-German  party,  173. 

Schuvaloff,  attitude  re  occupation  of 
Bosnia-Herzegovina,  213. 

Schwarzenberg,  14. 

Serbo  -  Croatian  coalition,  124-5,  and 
dealings  with,  257-60. 

Serbo-Croatian  problem,  284-7. 

Servia :  relations  with,  and  tariff  war 
against,  240-3,  254,  263. 

Siaguna,  Rumane  Bishop,  24. 

Sistovo,  peace  of,  1791,  54. 

Slavs,  relations  with  Emperor,  10. 

Slivnitza,  1885,  240. 

Slovenski-Jug  Society,  101. 

Social  Democratic  party,  134-6. 

Socialist  agitations,  1905,  1911,  atti- 
tude of  police  towards,  96-7. 

Solferino,  1859,  15,  56. 

Sombart,  Professor  Werner,  157,  Die 
Juden  und  das  Wirtschaftsleben, 
summary  of,  151-4,  and  Review  by 
Dr.  J.  Fromer,  160-2,  Die  Zukunft 
der  Juden,  168. 

Sonnenfels,    Freiherr    von,    85,    90-1, 

93- 

Sorel,  M.  Albert,  207,  293. 

Southern  Slav  problem,  280-7,  293. 

Spain,  war  with  United  States,  220. 

Spalaikovitch,  M.,  Servian  Under- 
secretary of  State,  and  Friedjung 
trial,  103. 

Stephanie,  Archduchess,  212. 

Supilo,  M.,  Serbo-Croatian  leader,  125, 
257,  and  Friedjung  trial,  101-4,  260. 

Svientochowski,  Captain  von,  260. 

Sylvester,  Dr.,  President  of  Austrian 
Chamber,  173. 

Szell,  M.,  Hungarian  Premier,  9. 

Szeptycki,  Mgr.,  Greek  United  Arch- 
bishop of  Lemberg,  128,  290,  291. 

Taaffe,  Count,  Premier,  26,  27,  28,  33, 

217- 

Tegetthoff,  Admiral,  case  of,  73. 
Tezner,  Professor,  14,  39,  43-4. 
Theatres,    attitude    of    state    officials 

towards,  74-5,  76-7. 
Thun,  Count  Leo,  Austrian  Minister  ; 

Concordat  with  Rome,  1855,  114. 
Tisza,   Koloman,  Hungarian    Premier, 

1875-1890,  29-33. 
Tisza,     Count     Stephen,      Hungarian 

Premier,  33. 
Tittoni,  Signor,  Italian  Foreign  Minister, 


3°4 


THE  HAPSBURG  MONARCHY 


249,  267,  Agreement  with  Gotuchow- 
ski,  274,  Attitude  as  regards  annexa- 
tion of  Bosnia-Herzegovina,  275, 
Communications  and  meetings  with 
Baron  von  Aehrenthal,  267-8,  275, 
Visit  to  Athens,  268. 

Transylvanian  autonomy  question,  287- 
8. 

Triple  Alliance,  272-5,  277. 

"  Trusts  "  and  "  rings,"  i'37. 

Tunis,  French  occupation,  270.' 

Turkey :  annexation  of  Bosnia-Herze- 
govina abandoned  owing  to  prospect 
of  resistance  of,  214,  Convention 
with,  1909,  255,  Memorandum  to, 
from  German  Jews,  re  Jewish  im- 
migration, 177-8,  Revolution,  1908, 
238,  243,  244- 

Turks,  defeat  of  Hungary  by,  at 
Mohacs,  1526,  referred  to,  69. 

Ukraine  movement,  290-2. 
Unitary  Constitution  of  1849,  14. 
United  States,  war  with  Spain,  220. 
Universal  suffrage  movement,   1905-7, 

124. 

University  questions,  129-30. 
Urussoff,  Prince,  Russian  Ambassador, 

233,  240. 

Vasitch  (Servian),  forgery  by,  in  con- 
nection with  Friedjung  case,  104,  260. 
Vaterland,  the,  198,  199. 


Veigelsberg,  Leo,  Assistant- Editor  of 
the  Pester  Lloyd,  192. 

Venosta,  Marquis  Visconti,  269,  Agree- 
ment with  Austria  re  Albania,  226, 
foreign  policy,  "274. 

Verboczy,  definition, of  the  "people" 
in  Tripartitum  Code,  4. 

Victor  Emmanuel,  King,  24^9,  250,  267, 
268,  269. 

Vienna,  Conference  of  Bishop's,  1849, 
114-15,  Eucharistic  Congress,  1912, 
108,  117,  Jewish  influx  from  Galicia 
and  Hungary,  148. 

Vienna  and  "  Vienna,"  202-6. 

Viennese,  203-4. 

Voigt  (murderer),  case  of,  97-8. 

Wekerle,     Dr.,    Hungarian     Coalition 

Premier,  257. 
Wertheimer,  Eduard  von,  216,  Andrassy 

referred  to,  214. 

Wiener  Allgemeine  Zeitung,  the,  189. 
Wieth-Knudsen,  Dr.,  168. 
William  I.,  German  Emperor,  visit  to 

Milan,  1875,  269. 
William    II.,    German    Emperor,    219, 

226,  246. 

Zeit,  the,  190,  242. 

Zinovieff,     Russian     Ambassador     at 

Constantinople,  233. 
Zita,     Princess,     of     Bourbon- Parma, 

marriage      to      Archduke      Charles 

Francis  Joseph,  50-1. 


THE    END 


Printed  by  R.  &  R.  CLARK,  LIMITED,  Edinburgh. 


T  /r 


A     000103635 


